SOS - I have done a terrible mistake: How can I make it up?

[MaiaHaaland]

Two weeks ago i changed the urls on our website, without redirecting the old ones. This has led to a dramatic drop in ranking.

What should i do:

1. redirect the old pages and keep the new ones

2. Change the urls back to the original ones

Which of these to methods will result in best ranking?

Maia

[SilverDoor]

Hi Maia,

Sorry to hear this has happened.

What was the reason for changing the URL in the first place?

This will determine if you redirect the old ones or revert back.

Could you possible specify why the change was made?

Thanks

SilverDoor

[Ray-pp]

Make sure to 301 the old URLs to the new URLs - this will pass along 99% of the authority and you should see an increase in the SERPs for your new URLs.

[MaiaHaaland]

We changed something in the cms.. instead of having the heading "solutions" we changed to "products" not thinking about the fact that all the sites linking from this page now would change their urls.

We could change back, because the change wasn't that important. But would we then get the same ranking on google like we had before the change two weeks ago?

If I should redirect - how do I do it? And how much do I get punished SEO-wise by changing?

Maia

[MaiaHaaland]

99 %... so I don't get punished more? How fast will I see the increase? How do I redirect pages?

[Ray-pp]

No, generally a 301 redirect will transfer 99%+ of the authority to the new link. I would anticipate waiting about 2 weeks before noticing the new URLs rank as high as the old URLs.

If you change the URLs back to the old structure, those rankings should return more quickly. However, if you new structure is more user friendly, it may be a good idea to make the change now rather than later, when the URLs gain even more authority.

[GPainter]

As Ray-PP & Silver Door have mentioned 301 is the best option here. You may well have to wait for Google to discover the new links but fear not, whilst you are waiting you can be pro-active getting in touch with webmasters who have the links on their pages and ask them to update the links. You can also submit some of your more important links to e.g. twitter to help them get indexed that bit quicker if you're in a really hurry but I wouldn't spam this and only use it for some of the more important areas.

As for the how to it really depends on your CMS system. As for which method, currently your in the same mess for which ever tactic you choose so find the URL structure you like and go for that.

Some more info on redirects can be found here - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en

Good luck.

[Chris.Menke]

Maia,

Here's your info on how to do the redirections: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection