This week for “Ask An SEO”, we have a question from Emma in Yorkshire, UK. She asks:
“My blog has little traffic. If I change the structure of my URLs, is this a bad idea? Or, is it good to do it now whilst the traffic is low?”
The answer is the same as when we examine so many SEO other scenarios – it depends.
But why does it depend?
Your reasons for making a change of this nature should be deliberated carefully. Why are you making this change?
If you do not have well thought out business or platform reasons for doing so, it would be best not to entertain the effort.
However, there are times when such a change is unavoidable.
The most common reason to change the structure of your URLs is during a company rebranding, site migration or redesign where some site defining element like domain name, product types, topical focus, or platform changes no longer allows you to keep the same URLs.
There are good reasons to make a change that affects your URL structure, but the question is:
Should you change your URL structure?
The answer is if you can avoid it at all costs – do.
Why You Should Try to Maintain Your URL Structure
There are definitive reasons you want to try to maintain your URL structure, whenever possible, outside of SEO.
For instance, a change might break bookmarks users have saved in their browser from visiting your site or emails you have sent out.
Changing the URL structure, in essence, removes the direct link relationship the user has to your site. – Read more
