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Hey Mark

Good idea? Yep!

Basic process;

1. Plan out the structure of your new site.
2. Map the old pages to the new pages.
3. Create the new site on a development or local server (some folks will build it right on the main domain, but just keep it hidden - I don't recommend that). If using a dev server, use your privacy settings and "discourage search engines from indexing the site" - you don't want the dev site indexed!!
4. Prepare your 301 redirects (as Kade suggested, I actually don't think you should keep your URLs the same at all - now's a good time for improvement).
5. Move WordPress from the dev environment to the new server.
6. You basically "pull the plug" on the old site by removing index.hrml and letting index.php (which is part of wordpress) take over.
7. Put in your 301 redirects ASAP.
8. Crawl the new site for 404s
9. Monitor WMT like crazy for a few weeks looking for any missed redirects.

I definitely recommend getting a dev to assist you if you don't feel comfortable!

Hope that helps.

-Dan

I see, thanks. Hmmm... did anything else change besides the re-design? Did the images URLs change, or did where they were being hosted change?

The current implementation doesn't show any issues, but I wonder if things were properly done in moving to the new design. Did you always have a slideshow format? Did the code change or just the design?

Hi Joost

It would be better to just "noindex" anything except view all. Then once they are gone from the index, set a block in robots.txt so they can't be crawled anymore. That fixes the issue at the source, the canonical is more of a bandaid. So:

1. Add a meta "noindex" tag to everything except view all (I am not 100% sure how in your wordpress setup - there's no one way, it depends on your setup).

2. Monitor the indexation of these pages in Google and wait for them to be removed (you can check with just searching for the URL in the search bar).

3. Once they are all gone from the index, block crawlers from accessing them by adding a line to your robots.txt file blocking the 24/48 URLs - again, I don't know the exact code for your robots.txt because I am unsure of your URL setup, but a dev or someone can help - or feel free to write back with these details and I'll try to help further.

Hey Chris

Personally, I would use a different host that allows you to edit .htaccess! And I would 301 redirect to the new urls.

Go with long term. Even if you lose .1% of link value the non-html will provide a much better UX in my opinion, and you'll have a standard setup.

-Dan

Thanks! Hmmm did it clear Search Console without any errors? I see an error in my browser --> http://screencast.com/t/VLWhg8EyR3Dd

Hi Joost

Can you provide examples of how all your URLs are setup? What does the URL look like for view all, 24 items etc etc?

Hi Chris

As I said in the other comment (and I'm just seeing your comment here) - this is crazy! Use a different host that "likes" whatever plugin you want and allows you full access to everything.

-Dan

Thanks! OK, yes I'd make your Sitemap and HTML image URLs the same.

Also, that's a LOT of images, so I'm not surprised Google is taking time to index them.

Also, there can sometimes be a delay in Search Console data. You can always be checking Google itself to see what files are indexed.

Hi There

I don't think you need to worry about the sitemap being indexed or not - it's an XML sitemap, not an HTML page users will need to find. It's accessible to Google, and they will use it to crawl the site. Have you submitted the XML sitemap to webmaster tools? If so, make sure it's free of errors and you should be all set!

https://support.google.com/sites/answer/100283?hl=en

Mike

I think this is what you are looking for: https://moz.com/community/q/html-extension - also a recent question from the Q&A. I think Dana's link explains how to maintain the .html in WordPress and that debate was more about if 301's pass PR etc.

Whereas if you've decided you already want to redirect, that tells you how.

You can do a "site:" search directly in Google like this and I currently see this --> http://screencast.com/t/ZVqq5iumQ - you can probably do a site: search on the whole domain, a subfolder or a specific page etc.

Joost

I think you'll need to get a developer or someone involved to help execute, but here's the ideal scenerio:

1. Add meta "noindex" tags to ?show_products=24 and 48
2. Make your 'view all' URL ideally just /product-category/t-shirts/ - with no parameter - or if you have to, maybe /t-shirts/all/ - your goal here is to keep it consistent and NOT the same parameter as the other pages
3. Then, whatever consistent URL you have for the 'all' - don't add "noindex" to that (keep it indexable).
4. Wait for Google to remove 24/48 URLs from the index (you have to just check every week or two with site: searches)
5. Once they are noindexed, block crawling with robots.txt with this line:

Disallow: /?show_products= <---but ONLY use that if you've changed your 'view all' URLs to something else! You ideally want a different URL structure for 'view all' vs. not view all to control crawling and indexation more easily.

This question was being asked a ton a while back so I made this video explaining it: http://youtu.be/2RrcUKaiAc4 (actual answer starts at 1:00)

-Dan

Hi Kate

I don't think it would be looked at as cloaking. One thing I would definitely do though to check is a fetch and render in search console. In the render, the Googlebot view should be the same as the browser view. You can also check the cached version of the page as well.

Yes this should be doable, just follow the instructions here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory and note that there is some specific info for IIS in there.

Hi There

While I'm not entirely familiar with how things work on the SellerDeck end - you can I believe have one WordPress install in the root and have different sections like /blog and /help etc - but put other non-wordpress things in /store or any other folder you want. So long as you don't try to make a page, post, category, tag, etc at /store you should be good to go. FYI two WordPress installs shouldn't affect speed but it may be more of a management and consistency concern, but I don't think you need to do that.

I am not totally sure I get the bonus question In this scenario, the ecommerce platform would serve the homepage? What would WordPress be doing in this situation? Thanks for clarifying and I'll try to help out!

-Dan

In general I would stick to paginated. Scrolling may add to page load time, and can sometimes frustrate users if they are trying to just get to your footer. Paginated is a very standard and expected method by users and search engines

Hi Aron

This prior question has a really great answer as well as this one.

In short, it depends how many keywords / topics you're targeting. It can work fine for a "one-topic" site but if you'd normally be targeting separate keywords for several or more pages, that's where you'll run into SEO trouble.

I forgot to mention WordPress has a really good forum where there may be someone who can help you more directly http://wordpress.org/support/

Hi Kate

Wanted to be sure you saw Barry's reply over on the Google forum. He also seems to think this would be fine, but I do agree with his recommendation to target all bots, not just Googlebot.

I also was able to find your page in Google and checked the cached version. Google's cache looks the same as the live version, so I think you should be fine.