I thought since I'm running Platinum SEO pack with Automatic 301 direct it wouldn't be a big deal to change my permalinks. Boy was I wrong. my traffic has dropped over 50% in the last three days, and Google went from indexing 40 pages to 1. Ouch! This is YEARS worth of work. I am so frustrated. I've change my permalinks back to the ugly non optimized style, but I'm sure the damage is done permanently. Sigh. So now that I've basically destroyed all my hard work... am I best to leave it at the new pretty links, or go back to the old ones?
Maybe it's the plug in. I use just plain old All in One SEO and I have never had that problem. I do remember some time back, a few Word Press versions ago, I was scared of the same thing and used a plug in called Deans Permalink Migration that is supposed to stop any loss from SE's by changing your permalink structure. Not sure if it is still supported for 2.7 since I haven't used it in a while, but here is the link: http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/permalinks-migration-plugin/ Hope it helps.
Well the plugin does seem to be delivering proper 301 redirects: #1 Server Response: http://www.thedailycute.com/?p=765 HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:48:44 GMT Server: LiteSpeed Connection: close X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.8 X-Pingback: http://www.thedailycute.com/dailycute/xmlrpc.php Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Location: http://www.thedailycute.com/2009/01/sliding-box-cat/ Content-Length: 0 Redirect Target: http://www.thedailycute.com/2009/01/sliding-box-cat/ #2 Server Response: http://www.thedailycute.com/2009/01/sliding-box-cat/ HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.0 200 OK Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:48:45 GMT Server: LiteSpeed Connection: close X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.8 X-Pingback: http://www.thedailycute.com/dailycute/xmlrpc.php Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=0de45b78b06deb329b639311f1ed2541; path=/ I don't get it. If it's doing proper 301 redirects, maybe I just didn't give it enough time for Google to redo the links.. (optimistic) I've also noticed my StumbleUpon traffic has dropped sharply. I think since the permalinks changed, people aren't thumbing the pages anymore (pages need to be re-added)
Did you check out that plug in ? Everything that I see online about the subject directs to it as a solution. Maybe give it a day or two and see if Google catches up.
Yeah I had a look but couldn't figure out how to make it work. lol. I don't know how it wants me to input the format for my previous permalinks. I switched back to my old permalinks, don't think I'm going to switch, too much risk thanks though
Just keep in mind that you might rank better "with pretty permalinks" xyz.com/sliding-box-cat has a better chance of ranking for sliding box cat than xyz.com/?p=765.
Is there any hard evidence for this? Or just the usual anecdotal stuff floating around on webmaster forums? I've heard it said before and always optimise permalinks, but have never seen any authoritative source confirming it helps SERPs.
Just to make sure, when you changed to SE friendly URL's, did old URL structure work as well? If not, make sure you do this properly. I also recommend you to re-build sitemap once is done. Have you checked what does Google Webmaster Tool say? I would give some more time to Google.
Yeah I checked the old links worked just fine, redirecting properly. My bigger concern though is my StumbleUpon thumbed posts won't get re-thumbed, as visitors will be confused that they arrived from SU, click thumbs up, then are told the site doesn't exist in the SU database. That'd confuse me if I was a visitor, and I would probably skip thumbing the page up altogether.
I doubt there is much to be done, unless you redirect an icon of "SU" to your previous permalink structure (%post_id%).
It's just basic common sense that a "?' and numbers won't have much luck in search results because no one will search for it. Anytime that you can include the keyword or phrase in the title to match possible searches, it is always better that just some random characters. What are you most likely to search for : "Wordpress themes" , or "?p=234" ?
So was that a response of "no" to my question? I've always been able to rank well (top 10 on competitive terms) with blogs and forums without worrying about SEF urls. I just think it is much overrated and still haven't heard authoritative comment confirming its nothing more than a minor contributor to SERPs. Your common sense may tell you otherwise. Good luck!
It is not about the fact that you cannot rank. It is about the fact that ranking would be made more easy with the URL's being that way. There are other factors that go into ranking, but changing the URL's into SEF ones will certainly increase your chances of ranking.
I didn't see anyone say anything about not being able to rank, not sure how you got that into your head. I am simply saying that for every 6 people who say it is important, half a dozen say the opposite. And the fact remains, no one has been able to bring forth authoritative opinion indicating it is an important contributor.
I only said that people without SEF urls could also rank, but their task would be made easier if they had SEF urls. You are entitled to your opinion though, and I'll leave it at that. If you've got the time, try acquiring two completely unrelated domains. ( say pqabc.com and jhyuz.com) 1.) Write any article on it ( Do not put keywords in the article though, and let both articles be unique) 2.) Take some nonsense keyword as the title in both. 3.) Keep one with the default permalinks,and the other with the post name permalinks. 4.) Google after a few days, and see which one ranks better. All factors being equal, the one with the permalinks should and will rank better. If I've got the time to do this, I'll post the results up in a short while.
Well, you can go ahead and monkey around like that as much as you see fit if to your eyes it "proves" something. As is clear to any able to comprehend my previous posts, I am not denying SEF urls might contribute something towards ranking. I've still to see anything authoritative or even factual in regard of how much they might influence rankings. That's all.
i use pretty permalink and all in one seo pack plugin and found no problem. pretty permalink is good for search engine
I switched to the platinum SEO pack from the all-in-one SEO pack without any problems - but to be honest ... I was using pretty permalinks since I started the blog - so I doubt it has anything to do with the plugins themselves. In all honesty I just think Google needs to catch up to the changes first - maybe it needs to check that the redirects stay in place? As for the pretty permalinks giving an advantage - I've seen both SEOMoz and SEOBook arguing in favour of descriptive URL's as opposed to using numbers and ID's - I'd say those two alone are pretty authoritative in their own right, but there are plenty more if you take the time to search for them.