Googlebot couldn't crawl old pages after website update

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by AmanDH, Apr 1, 2016.

  1. #1
    Hi all,
    I have a problem after updating my website.
    I had links previously like this :-
    website.com/game/links
    But after the update they are now
    website.com/games/links
    So you see, they are now modified to games in place of game.
    How should i let google know that links are now modified, i am getting the following error in webmasters tool :-

    Googlebot couldn't crawl this URL because it points to a non-existent page. Generally, 404s don't harm your site's performance in search, but you can use them to help improve the user experience
     
    AmanDH, Apr 1, 2016 IP
  2. Peter Stavrou

    Peter Stavrou Greenhorn

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    #2
    Add a redirect so website.com/game/links gets redirected to website.com/games/links
     
    Peter Stavrou, Apr 1, 2016 IP
    Nigel Lew likes this.
  3. Nigel Lew

    Nigel Lew Notable Member

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    #3
    Peter is correct but depending on the server configuration, you may have to do a bit of trial and error.

    Redirect 301 /game/links http://www.site.com/games/links

    To redirect the contents of an entire directory to another try this...

    RewriteRule ^game/links(.*)$ /game/links/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

    If the top one doesn't work I would have to check on a few things server wise but there are likely some things to consider based on how the urls get generated in the first place. Are you talking wordpress or some sorta wonky script from the web?

    Peter is still entirely correct. You are going to want to punt any request to all things /game to /games that includes anything else as well obviously, not just /game/links eg: /game/whatever

    There are a number of reasons to keep stuff cleanly coded and organized. Not just seo. Like bandwidth for instance.

    hope that helps.
    Nigel
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2016
    Nigel Lew, Apr 1, 2016 IP
    Bitpalace likes this.
  4. sikandar

    sikandar Active Member

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    #4
    There is yet another approach if you want faster results. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and instruct Google to remove the old URLs from its index. To do that click on the New Removal request, type in the old url that you want to get deindexed and then click continue. Finally, click Remove this page

    Then instruct Google to fetch the new URLs and add to its index. To do that Click Crawl -> Fetch as Google and then Click Submit to Index.

    For more details check
    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663419?hl=en
    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6065812?hl=en
     
    sikandar, Apr 3, 2016 IP
  5. AmanDH

    AmanDH Well-Known Member

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    #5
    Thanks for all the support, I have renamed it using htaccess.
     
    AmanDH, Apr 19, 2016 IP
  6. rupesh.panache58

    rupesh.panache58 Greenhorn

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    #6

    two way to do this

    first by htaccess file
    write in htaccess file:
    Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html http://example.com/newdirectory/newfile.html .

    second :
    using google webmaster
    force webmaster to remove the link to do this click on the New Removal request, type in the old url that you want to get deindexed & click continue. Finally, click Remove this page.

    Then let Google know to fetch the new URLs and add to its index. To do that Click Crawl -> Fetch as Google and then Click Submit to Index.
     
    rupesh.panache58, Apr 20, 2016 IP