Google keep indexing old urls after site migration

[ilayg]

Post site-migration. ~90% of the redirects picked by Googlebot and the new URLs are the ones indexing.

Some of the URLs still rank with the old URLs even though in the log files I can see that Google crawls those pages and gets 301 a few times.

In the GSC Inspection tool, the URLs are marked as 'URL is on Google' but with the canonical of the new URL, and when I check the live test, I get the content of the new page (the one that should be ranking).

Never saw something like this, not sure what to do.
Any insights?

[edited by: ilayg at 2:47 pm (utc) on Feb 12, 2025]

[engine]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.
How much time has elapsed from the migration?

[ilayg]

Thanks for the welcome!
It's almost 4 months since the migration.

[engine]

From what you've indicated, it sounds like G has discovered and has yet to fully update its indexes. In my experience, it can take quite a while, especially with larger sites.

G is usually great at new content: It's also worth checking whether brand new pages are being picked up.

[not2easy]

It can take a very long time to de-index old URLs. Google seems to never forget once they've seen a page, they will return to it. Change seems to confuse them, but they will gradually figure it out.

[ilayg]

The only thing that’s odd for me here, it’s the fact that in the Inspection tool on GSC, it’s pulled the NEW canonical URL (i.e. the new destination) for the OLD URL. And when I check the live test, it shows the new page. This is what makes me wonder here... Anyway, I requested indexing again; maybe it will help. I’ll update here :)

[ilayg]

Another weird thing. When I inspect the old URL without a trailing slash, it shows the expected result: "Page is not indexed: Page with redirect." Both versions redirect to the new expected URL.

[lxstcenxtury]

Are the new URLs picking up quickly?

[ilayg]

Yes, I think ~60% after 1 week is a decent amount of time. The 30% rest was much slower.... At the end, I request indexing for all the pagination pages of the categories, and it increases the share% of indexing pages.

[tangor]

Get used to finding these kind of things in the logs. I have requests periodically for URLS which died 20 years ago!