Hey All, A couple of months back we switched from straight html to php to allow for better management of our catalog and inventory via MYSQL db. Expecting more frequent updates to actually help in the SERPS we have actually suffered major losses on keywords for which we maintained respectable position for years. Now, the handful of less desireable keywords we yet rank reasonably well for, are only ranking for our root URL. None of the subdirectory pages seem to rank at all. Iv'e been pouring over the content and code but can't begin to guess what the reason might be. The 301 redirects have all worked, but we have fallen off the face of the virtual map. Can anyone offer any insights?
one thing that comes with php based sites are php urls (they look really crappy) are your urls SEO friendly?
Crappy becuase the end in php and not html??? Anyway, as for SEO freindly, not sure what you mean? Spider simulators don't seem to have a problem with them, but...???
Well an SEO friendly URL looks like www.yourdomainname.com/product.php A non-seo friendly URL would look some like www.yourdomainname.com/Dl<mpl=default<mplcache=2 Use mod-rewrite and that should help!
I don't think it makes a difference. But I admit my html sites perform better than php sites. Maybe I should do some analysis and see of there is something to your observation.
Even with mod rewrite you can redirect your html address to your php page. By using this method your site sturcture doesn't change at all, except you intend to rebulid your site from zero.
Agreed, any php pages using more than one variable need to have more SE friendly URLs. Also, i would try being a little patient... Making a transition like that will sometime give your rankings a temporary drop. If you have redirects inplace your rankings should return.
Thanks All, To reiterate, none of our php URLs are SEO unfriendly. Basically swapped html extensions for php extensions with 301 redirect. As for patience... looking back I think that's what got us into this mess in the first place. Pretty pleased with our overall position for our best keywords, I have long preached to others when asked "How'd you do it?" that Patience was paramount. Do your SEO BEST and WAIT! Well, confident that the updates made would garner considerable improvement in already decent and long established position, I made the changes and have been sitting on my hands evers since, focusing on other projects. That was mid February! Now, of new sites I have said many times to others that I would be reluctant to make any changes in the first six months, but I wouldn't think a 4 year old PR4 site with decent position on a variety of keywords and phrases would suffer such a backslide for 3 months (going on 4 now) unless there was something substantially wrong in the approach/code???
There is often a bit of slippage around 301 re-directs. That is not so unusual.. as long as NOTHING else has changed, I dare say the rankings should return in a few weeks or so....