Change in url structure - added category page

[bitte]

I have recently started an e-commerce website and have now changed the url structure and added another level to my category pages.

So where it before was www.website.com/shirts it is now www.website.com/clothes/shirts. So I added the clothes category (just an example) before the shirt category and am now finding that the old url is still found in the search index and is still live on my site. How could this be?

I use wordpress and simply change the urls in the backend. The products are still under www.website.com/product/blue-shirt-123 so they won't be affected but I suppose it now means I have duplicate category pages?

So my question is: Should I 301 the the old category page (www.website.com/shirts)to the new url (www.website.com/clothes/shirts). And how can the old url still be live on my site?

If this was a bit unclear, please let me know.

Appreciate your replies!

[StalkerB]

You can literally put anything in the category part of the URL and it will resolve.

Try www.website.com/fhqwhgads/shirts and it will still resolve, heck throw another directory in there and it will still work www.website.com/fhqwhgads/zomg/shirts

As for why it does that, I'm probably not the best person to explain, but WP effectively just looks for the end of the URL, which is sometimes why naming pages and posts the same can cause problems.

I'm not sure what would happen if you 301'd /shirts to /clothes/shirts as it may just be looking at the last part anyway (could quickly try).

I'd consider adding a canonical tag instead.

[bitte]

Ok, I see that now, thanks. Does this also mean I do not have a duplicate pages (duplicate content) issue then?

[evolvingSEO]

Hey There

What Barry says is true - you can throw anything in there and it will load, as long as the category is at the end.

But yes, for certain, in your case I would 301 redirect /shirts to /clothes/shirts (and all other categories). Crawl the site with Screaming Frog and keep an eye on 404 errors in Webmaster Tools for anything you might have missed.

I don't think there's any issue in regards to duplicate content.

-Dan