Hello, I have a site that is run using Joomla. Write now I have the core Joomla SEO URLs enabled so they look like the following: /content/view/121/94/ /content/view/20/94/ /content/view/122/94/ HTML: I wanted to apply an SEF component that would change the URLs to look like this: /hard_drives/western_digital_caviar_se16_80gb_sata_hard_drive/ /hard_drives/western_digital_caviar_se16_160gb_sata_hard_drive/ /hard_drives/western_digital_caviar_se16_500gb_sata_hard_drive/ HTML: Now last time I tried to do this, my indexed page count in Google pretty much quadrupled (I'm guessing cuz of duplicate content) and then my pages totally disappeared from the Google SERPs. The only way I could find my pages was by searching site:mysite.com. Eventually I was freaked out and pissed off that I lost all of my SE traffic so I went back to the core Joomla SEO URLs and eventually everything cleared up. Now I've found a better Joomla SEF component so I'd like to try this out again. Now my question is: If I change the URL structure is Google going to drop my pages out of the SERPs again? And if I give it enough time, will my pages eventually get reindexed and move up in the SERPs again? Any help or tips would be great.
Which component? OpenSEF? It should actually auto map them and you'll have a rewrite that essential works like a 301 redirect. Problem here is that once you change URL it can take 2-4 weeks for the rankings to come back with most SEs. So no matter what - there will be a temporary loss in most cases. Usually tho - with the NEW URLs - you will bounce back better than before
I just bought Advance SEF and I actually read that it automatically 301 redirects old pages. So that makes me happy. I used ARTIO JoomSEF before and that crap threw out so much dusplicate content and screwed everything up! Haha! I feel a lot better about Advance SEF.