How much pain can I expect if I change the URL structure of the site again?

[robertrRSwalters]

About 3 months ago I implemented a massive URL structure change by 'upgrading' some of the features of our CMS

Prior to this URL's for catergorys and products looked something like this

http://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=OX09

I made a few changes but din't implement it fully as I felt it would be better to do it instages as the site was getting indexed more thouroughly.

HOWEVER...

We have just hit the first page for some key SERP's and I am wary to rock the boat again by changing the URL structures again and all the sitemaps.

How much pain do you think we could feel if i went ahead and optimised the URL's fully?

and

What would you do?

[krissy-cca]

I would take the hit - as I don't believe it will be massive and in the long-run you'd be better off as you'll soon come back to your original ranking position.

You're going to want to change them at some point in time so the sooner it gets done the better in my opinion.

DD

[robertrRSwalters]

Thanks for the reply Damien,

Thing is we are looking seriously @ magento and other CMS. We are on old technology here.. I make all the sitemaps and feeds myself (with excel)..

Still think its worth the hit or would you leave it until we got a news CMS?

[krissy-cca]

Ah I didn't know you were changing CMS. If that's the case then things change a little. You have the option to 301 all your URL's that haven't been rewritten so that's probably your best bet as your duplicating your effort otherwise. I'd like to hear anyone else's view though

DD

[robertrRSwalters]

I am in 301 hell... :-S

With FP extensions you need to access the .htaccess file and I can't find a hosting provider who will touch it for me..

Hence the reason for my question.. I have found a way to add rel=canonical to the dynamic pages on the site but this will change how the site is indexed... also there is a way to amend the URL's to drop catergory.asp / product.asp/ productdetail.asp out of the URL and replace it with the actual product names..

Although other people I've asked seem to think google have overcome issues like this and that they will put less importance on URL's in the future.. the perfectionist in me wants to change everything so its all perfect..

What do you think?

[rishil]

If you are serioulsy looking at changing CMS - then wait till you are closer to implementation - and then run it all in one go...

[Getz.pro]

As long as you 301 the pages you should be fine, however, if you are ranking why change it?

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Robert,

I'm following up on older, unanswered questions. Can you tell us what you ended up doing with the site, and how much pain you went through, and any lessons learned? I'm interested to here what decision you made here.

Thanks!