New URL structure caused a HUGE drop?

[BlinkWeb]

I have started working with a client who did an upgrade on their e-commerce sive in May of last year. It totally changed the URL structure and they didn't redirect old URLs or do any of the things they should have. Not unexpectedly they they went from about 300 visitors a day to 0 for then rose up to maybe 50 and have remained there ever since.

There were some major onsite issues including about 15000 internal links that 302 back to the site. In any case I have fixed most of the onsite problems and worked on a little better categorization + content optimization, etc.

We have only been working on this for about 30 days and organic traffic is up and they are ranking for much better keywords, but I expected a little quicker rise.

Here is a screenshot out of GA of their descent. Its pretty rapid.

I dont think it makes sense to redirect their old URLs at this point since most of them have been deindexed for 10+ months. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get back to their previous level. The domain actually has decent authority and link profile, etc.

Is this just going to be a slow climb back? Any thoughts?

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[KeriMorgret]

A quick question first -- you've verified that Google Analytics code is on all of their current pages, right? Discovering way later there was a glitch in code implementation and half of their URLs don't have GA code would be a major headache, as would finding that a good part of the dip was because they finally pulled the code off of the development server. I've seen both happen.

[BlinkWeb]

Hmm, that is an interesting thought. It is automatically added by X-Cart, but I will do some spot checking to make sure.

[TECHeGO]

I would disagree with you on the redirection of the old site URLs. I have worked on and consulted with several eCommerce websites and from 2004-2008 ran my own successful eCommerce site called thesprintstore.net. I changed the URL structure and had the same thing happen to my site. At the time I chalked the issue up to moving everything around and believed that the site would eventually bounce back. Due to the economy it never did.

I later discovered that the old URL structure had some seriously powerful backlinks from sites like techcrunch, engaget, engagetmobile and other awesome forums. If I had only redirected all of the old urls to the new urls all of that link juice would have continued onto my site and I would not have experienced such a significant drop in domain and page authority.

Regardless of indexation or how long ago the urls were changed its never a good strategy to play hide and seek with Google so simply apply 301 redirects from the old to the new and see what transpires over the coming months. After all, it cant hurt right?

[AlanBleiweiss]

Adding to Seth's response - not only do I agree with him completely, the other factor is how many potential visitors still, to this day, click on those old links only to get 404'd?

[BlinkWeb]

Interesting point. The old URL structure isn't entirely clear to me is though, so it would take some real digging to apply all the old urls.

I guess its worth a shot.

Whats up with the new having to remember to thumbs up your own posts by the way????

[KeriMorgret]

Roger, here's a new post about the changes in the Q&A system http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pro-qa-forum-upgrades-changes.

[KeriMorgret]

And along the same lines, there wasn't a rogue line of code that set the canonical URL for all of your products to the home page or added a noindex to your pages, right?