Thousands of pages already indexed, want to change my URLs...

I run a website that has thousands of pages already indexed. The problem is that all URLs are "/listing.php?id=1535". Google has indexed a ton of these pages, and I receive about 1,000 hits a day from google organically by people searching for longer-tail keywords and landing on one of them.

Here is my issue. I want to change all my URLs so that they say "/reviews.php?id=page-topic" to help increase my SEO. I already have tons of deep backlinks pointing to pages like "/listing.php?id=32525" which I could really not change.

My plan would be to:

1. Make the switch so all my internal links point to the new URLs
2. Remove the old URLs from my sitemap and have only my new URLs.
3. When someone types in the old URL, it loads a page that only has a link to the new page and meta-refreshes in a second to the new page.

My questions are:
1. How bad is this going to hurt my google rankings for all these misc terms? Or will google recognize what I am doing and go along with it?
2. Is there anything else I can do?
3. Is it worth the trouble? I figure that it would be in the long run.

Thanks!!
- Tom

 

Same question here. I want to remove "index.php" from my links but don't know how much it will hurt my google rank.

 

My intuition tells me that it would help in the long run, but the question is really how long is it going to take before it pays off...

 

you could always do a 301 onto the new urls or build links up for new urls before you delete the old ones

 

I did the same on one of my sites with a 301 redirect. I saw a temporary drop in my SERP, but it came back in 2-3 weeks.

 

Definitely do a 301 redirect. If not it will probably hurt you.

 

I suggest you to keep the old URLs. See the URL structure here at DP. You can see that it is same as your old URL structure. DP threads rank in minutes and rank high.

Changing your URLs will not help much. Instead, keep the old structure and concentrate on content and backlinks.

Incase you decide to change URL structure, then your SERPs may drop temporarily

 

I totally agree.

 

The 301 was to work fine, i did it some time ago, some drop on Serps but recovering very fast.

But these days considering change from "l.php?id=7788" to "p.php?id=topic_name" you may end to have a strong dropdrop down, since you are trying to a force rewrite and it seems that google do like that anymore

 

If you are doing any kind of changes to your website, specially if you are redirecting pages using 301/302 your ranking might suffer for a while but it will recover after a while
Consider adding more content and focus more on getting more quality backlinks instead.

 

First the SEO advantage you are seeking is not real or minimal at best. It will have no affect on you SERP rankings because you are not adding a keyword to the URL, you are adding it to the querystring.

Second, is the age of the page indexes. The age is more important in the calculation of Page Rank and SERP position. Changing the urls will reset this clock.

You will get better results by changing the anchor text on the links.

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miranon
"Same question here. I want to remove "index.php" from my links but don't know how much it will hurt my google rank. "

Handle this with a "301 Redirect" and you will be fine.

 

1. How bad is this going to hurt my google rankings for all these misc terms? Or will google recognize what I am doing and go along with it?
> It will hurt it and you'll loose ranking for some keywords and phrases for a certain period of time, but you should gain your positions

2. Is there anything else I can do?
> not to change the URLS and to focus on content

3. Is it worth the trouble? I figure that it would be in the long run.
> I don't think so! I might loose traffic and to wait up to 6 months

Just don't think about URLs and Search engines but try to attract loyal visitors

 

Thanks everyone. I have decided not to go forward with the switch. Having SEO-friendly URLs is something you really need to do starting day 1. I make sure that all my other sites start out with good URLs.

 

i feel that it would definitely hurt you .i doubt whether changing the url will help you in anyway.just try for more internal linking and onsite optimization .that would be more than enough .