URL Rewrite

[Hakkasan]

We are trying to convince a client to do a massive rewrite from all URL's looking like this:

"www.company.com/category/categoryId=82374"

to something like

"www.company.com/womens/jackets/rain"

How would you describe the importance and impact of doing URL rewrites to an ecommerce site?  What evidence/research can we share with them to convince them it is worth the time and effort to do?

[Highland]

If this isn't a brand new site I'd leave it alone. I've been the URL move route and it was PAINFUL. Even with 301s there was a temporary drop in rank while the spiders caught up. I like neat URLs as much as anyone but I can't say the URL rewrite is worth the headache. Remember, your URL is window dressing. Google will spider

myawesomesite.com/?dgauyrgfbfkf=shdgfjkwhe

as well as

myawesomesite.com/keyword

[Trupanion]

I would say that it all depends on how they are currently ranking.  If you are just in the beginning stages of SEO, then I would say go ahead and make this step.  But if the site is already doing well then I might hold off.

There was a great answer about here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/website-restructure-good-or-bad-for-seo

Restructuring allows you to organize your content into "Silos" and eliminate some of the unnecessary links through JSON objects, iframes, and nofollows (some debate there on which is optimal).

The Downfalls: There will probably be a 30-90 day dip in traffic but if you do page-to-page 301's it won't hurt nearly as much. Anytime you change URL's you are likely to see some inbound links drop off, but that happens when the pages don't change, so it's going to be minimal. Sure, 301's might drop some of your PR during transfer, but only a minimal amount according to matt cutts.

The Benefits:  Organizing your content into silos and pruning cross-category links will allow you to control the flow of pagerank and anchor text much more effectively. Bruce Clay has a huge amount of resources on this, and they even cover it on their blog.

Will it be painful? Yes.

Will it be worth it? Yes.

[oznappies]

I would get them in the shopper mindset and transfer it to the street. Ask them, do they go into a retail outlet and ask to see the '82374 in category?' as the shop assistant looks at them with a blank expression, or do they ask for a 'womens rain jacket'. When you bring it back to real life examples, I find customers understand what you are trying to convince them. So, why should it be different on line, if you want any rank benifit from the url it needs to have your key words in it. If you are targetting 'womens rain jacket' and you get a mention in a blog etc a anchor of 'www.company.com/womens/jackets/rain' still includes the keywords where as the cookie cutter url does not. It also makes the site look more professionally created than a DIY cookie cutter version.

Brent makes good points and you will see a inital wave ride in rank but it should bounce back higher. I like to also add Canonical head tags to make the new origin of the site's pages. I would also prepare a new sitemap and submit it, if there are a lot of pages, make the move in groups, with a resubmit after each group. We have had pages bounce back much quicker than 30 days too, some in as little as a week.