Permalinks in Wordpress not good for SEO?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by flamy, Oct 21, 2009.

0
  1. #1
    Hi, before I enabled Permalinks in my Wordpress control panel my website was performing well in Google. Now I have my url's formed as such:

    http://www.mywebsite.com/link-to-my-page

    Which to be honest is easier to read and in theory makes good seo sense, whereas before they were formed: http://www.mywebsite.com/?p=48

    My pages are still indexed by Google, just nowhere near as highly as before. I was previously on the first page in positions 3 and 4 for some searches, now I can't even find my website on the first 10 pages with the same search!

    Is this because Google has become wary of hyphenated urls?
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2009
    flamy, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  2. orionoreo

    orionoreo Peon

    Messages:
    145
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #2
    my theory is that pages are being reindexed... how long has it been since you changed the permalinks
     
    orionoreo, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  3. flamy

    flamy Peon

    Messages:
    20
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #3
    About 1-2 week ago.

    I think because the links have been changed and google has re-indexed the urls they are being ranked down as no websites are linking the new urls directly - even though the non permalink url still works.

    Bing and Yahoo still index the non permalink url and have page 1 results, I think I'll switch back to non permalinked urls to help save my seo rankings made from existing incoming links.
     
    flamy, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  4. Trapped

    Trapped Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,832
    Likes Received:
    48
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    130
    #4
    Wordpress should be already "redirecting" visitors to the new permalink URL..however you can try to manually add 301 redirects on .htaccess to pass link juice from old URL structure to new URL structure.
     
    Trapped, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  5. webwest

    webwest Peon

    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #5
    What Trapped said!
     
    webwest, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  6. sultanofseo

    sultanofseo Notable Member

    Messages:
    9,930
    Likes Received:
    405
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    265
    #6
    you would have a permalink to each post regardless, whether custom or default.

    you were ranking well before and then you switched to custom permalink for which your post URLs have changed. give it some time for google to reindex your pages. at the same time you can also build some backlinks which will invite googlebot to your blog. custom permalink with post title will give you better SEO benefit in the long run than default permalink
     
    sultanofseo, Oct 21, 2009 IP
  7. flamy

    flamy Peon

    Messages:
    20
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #7
    I am having a nightmare time with Google and other search engines since switching on permalinks.

    I have now switched back to the standard link structure ?p=48, although now Google has picked up "?p=48&cpage=1" which again links to the same page but isn't the URL I have incoming links to!

    I've just completeley dropped off every search engines radar because of this now!

    I have submitted a site map which has been indexed but nothing has seemed to have changed.
     
    flamy, Oct 25, 2009 IP