Changed permalink structure by mistake and I need help

by 3 replies
4
I changed my Wordpress permalink structure from category/postname to postid/postname by mistake and it stayed that way for a little over 2 weeks until I revert it back to its original setting (category/postname). During the 2 weeks, Google and Yahoo have indexed most of my blog's inner pages with the new permalink structure and now my blog has lost serp ranking.

Many of the older posts that ranked in the top 3 (1st page) on Google are either on the second page or at best floating around the last result on the first page. The results on Yahoo are even worse. According to information on Market Samurai, Yahoo hasn't re-indexed my blog with the new (original) permalink structure and most of the posts that used to rank 1 to 3 are not even found. Traffic has more than halved and I feel that my work for the past 2 years have gone to waste.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, will my blog ever regain the ranking in the serp? I changed the permalink structure to the original setting again because of the backlinks pointing to the inner pages, but now I'm wondering if I should have just left it as it was changed. Has anyone experienced something similar or know what I should expect after a mistake like this? Thank you for taking the time to read this and please share any opinion you may have on this.
#search engine optimization #changed #mistake #permalink #structure
  • Yes, it will regain rankings. I've done this before on purpose to test it out,
    and to observe if I would get back on track, in fact, the changes I made
    helped my rankings in the long-run and now are sticking to the rankings a lot longer than before.

    I don't include the date in my permalink, just the blog title
    which I will optimize with keywords when writing and posting my blog content.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Banned
    If you don't do a site wide 301 redirect your going to have a 404 for every single page that has the wrong permalink & is now corrected.

    Google indexed them once & when they come back they'll expect them to be in the same location.

    I always take the easy way out of the 404s & redirect every single 404 back to the Index page, so no external backlink is ever wasted.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, good point. Yukon is 100% right. You have to set that up.

      And I'd like to ADD -- You should update your Sitemap in your Google Webmasters Tool.
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed

  • 4

    Changed permalink structure by mistake and I need help

    I changed my Wordpress permalink structure from category/postname to postid/postname by mistake and it stayed that way for a little over 2 weeks until I revert it back to its original setting (category/postname). During the 2 weeks, Google and Yahoo have indexed most of my blog's inner pages with the new permalink structure and now my blog has lost serp ranking. Many of the older posts that ranked in the top 3 (1st page) on Google are either on the second page or at best floating around the last result on the first page. The results on Yahoo are even worse. According to information on Market Samurai, Yahoo hasn't re-indexed my blog with the new (original) permalink structure and most of the posts that used to rank 1 to 3 are not even found. Traffic has more than halved and I feel that my work for the past 2 years have gone to waste.