Changing the URL path of blog articles on your website might seem like a small task, but it can have a significant impact on both user experience and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The structure of your URLs plays a key role in how easily search engines can crawl and index your content, as well as how easily users can navigate your website.

Whether you are looking to make your blog URLs more readable, SEO-friendly, or simply want to match your website’s branding, altering the URL structure is an important step in improving the overall user experience and search ranking.

In this guide, we will walk through the step-by-step process of changing the URL path for blog articles on your website. We will also discuss best practices for structuring URLs and the impact of URL changes on SEO.

Why Should You Change the URL Path to Blog Articles?

Before diving into the steps to change the URL path for blog articles, it’s important to understand why you might want to make this change. Several factors contribute to why you should consider altering your URL structure:

1. SEO Optimization

Search engines use URLs as one of the ranking factors. A URL that clearly reflects the content of the blog article can improve your rankings for relevant search queries. For example, using descriptive keywords in the URL path can help search engines understand what the page is about and index it properly.

2. Readability and User Experience

A clean, readable URL is easier for both users and search engines to interpret. URLs that contain complex or irrelevant strings of characters (e.g., long numbers or irrelevant terms) may confuse users and make it difficult for them to understand what the page is about. A straightforward and descriptive URL makes your website more user-friendly.

3. Branding

Having a consistent and meaningful URL structure aligns with your branding strategy. When your URLs reflect your website’s overall design and organization, it gives your website a more professional and polished appearance. It can also improve the navigation experience, allowing users to know where they are within your site.

4. Changing Post Topics or Categories

Over time, you might restructure your website or change the focus of your blog topics. If your original URL path doesn’t reflect your new content or category structure, changing the URL path can help maintain a consistent and logical site architecture.

Step-by-Step Guide to Changing the URL Path for Blog Articles

The process for changing the URL path to your blog articles varies depending on the platform or content management system (CMS) that you are using. Below, we will cover the most common methods for changing the URL structure, primarily focusing on WordPress, one of the most widely used CMS platforms for blogs.

Step 1: Back Up Your Website

Before making any changes, it’s important to back up your website to prevent any accidental data loss. Whether you’re using WordPress, Wix, or any other platform, make sure you have a recent backup of both your website files and database.

If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy to create a backup.

Step 2: Plan Your New URL Structure

Changing URLs is not something to be done haphazardly. It’s essential to plan your new URL structure ahead of time to ensure consistency and avoid potential issues like broken links or lost search rankings.

Here are a few considerations when planning:

  • Short and Descriptive URLs: Try to keep your URLs concise while still descriptive of the content. For example, instead of “www.example.com/post12345“, you could use “www.example.com/how-to-optimize-blog-urls“.
  • Incorporate Keywords: If possible, incorporate relevant keywords into the URL path to boost SEO.
  • Avoid Special Characters: It’s best to avoid using characters like spaces, question marks, or other non-alphanumeric symbols, as they can create issues with browsers and search engines.
  • Categories and Subfolders: If your blog articles fall into categories (e.g., “Marketing”, “Tech”, or “SEO”), it’s a good idea to include them in the URL structure to make it easier for users and search engines to navigate.

Example:

Step 3: Update the URL Path in Your CMS

For WordPress Users:
  1. Access Your WordPress Dashboard: Log into your WordPress admin panel.
  2. Go to Settings > Permalinks: Under the “Settings” tab, click on “Permalinks.” This is where you can configure the structure of your URLs.
  3. Choose a Permalink Structure: WordPress offers several permalink options, such as default, day and name, month and name, numeric, and post name. If you’re looking to change the URL structure for blog posts, it’s often best to select the “Post Name” option for simplicity and SEO-friendliness.
  4. Custom Structure: If you need more customization, you can use a custom structure. For example, you might choose something like /blog/%postname%/ to include the word “blog” in the URL path before the article name.
  5. Save Changes: Once you’ve made your changes, click the “Save Changes” button to update your URL structure across the website.

For Wix Users:

  1. Access Wix Editor: Log into your Wix account and navigate to your site’s editor.
  2. Select the Blog Section: Find the blog section and click on the post you want to update.
  3. Edit Post Settings: In the post settings, you will find the option to update the URL slug. Edit the slug to reflect your desired URL structure.
  4. Save Changes: After updating the URL, save your changes.

For Squarespace Users:

  1. Access the Squarespace Dashboard: Log into your Squarespace account.
  2. Go to Pages > Blog: Navigate to your blog page from the left sidebar.
  3. Select a Post to Edit: Click on the blog post you wish to change the URL for.
  4. Edit the Post URL: In the post settings, you’ll find an option to edit the URL slug. Modify it as needed.
  5. Save and Publish: Once you’re done editing, click “Save” to publish the new URL.

Step 4: Set Up 301 Redirects

Changing URLs, especially for existing blog articles, can result in broken links or 404 errors if not handled properly. To ensure that visitors and search engines are properly redirected to the new URLs, you need to set up 301 redirects. This is a permanent redirect that tells search engines and browsers that the content has been moved to a new URL.

How to Set Up 301 Redirects

  1. WordPress: You can use a plugin like Redirection or Yoast SEO to easily set up 301 redirects from the old URL to the new URL.
  2. Manually via .htaccess: If you’re comfortable editing files on your server, you can manually add 301 redirects in your .htaccess file for each old URL.

Example of a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file:

bash
Redirect 301 /old-blog-post /new-blog-post
  1. Other CMS Platforms: Platforms like Wix and Squarespace typically handle redirects automatically, but it’s worth checking their documentation to ensure your redirects are set up correctly.

Step 5: Update Internal and External Links

After changing the URL path for your blog articles, it’s crucial to update any internal links within your website that point to the old URLs. This prevents broken links and ensures that visitors can navigate smoothly throughout your site.

Internal Links

  • If you have blog posts or pages that link to the old URL, update them to reflect the new URL path. This is especially important for anchor text links, which should match the new URL.

External Links

  • For external websites that link to your blog articles, it may be difficult to update those links directly. However, setting up 301 redirects will ensure that visitors arriving via external links are properly redirected to the new URL.

Best Practices for Structuring Blog URLs

When changing the URL path to your blog articles, following best practices can make a big difference in both SEO and user experience. Below are some tips to keep in mind when structuring your URLs:

  • Keep URLs Short: Shorter URLs are easier to remember and more user-friendly. Avoid including unnecessary words or characters.
  • Use Hyphens to Separate Words: Hyphens are preferred over underscores or spaces to separate words in the URL. For example, “how-to-optimize-urls” is better than “how_to_optimize_urls”.
  • Incorporate Keywords: If possible, include relevant keywords in your URL to help improve search engine rankings.
  • Avoid Special Characters: Special characters like &, %, and $ can create issues with browsers and search engines. Stick to letters, numbers, and hyphens.

Step 6: Monitor the Performance and Impact of URL Changes

Once the changes to your blog article URLs are live, it’s crucial to monitor their performance to ensure that the transition doesn’t negatively affect your website’s SEO or user traffic. Here’s how you can monitor the impact and performance of your new URL structure:

1. Use Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an invaluable tool when it comes to monitoring how your website is performing in Google’s search results. After changing the URLs, follow these steps:

  • Submit a Sitemap: Make sure that your sitemap in Search Console is updated to reflect the new URLs. This will help search engines crawl and index the new URLs faster.
  • Monitor Crawl Errors: Check for any crawl errors caused by the URL change. If Google’s crawler encounters issues, it will report them in the Crawl Errors section. Address these errors promptly to ensure that your new URLs are properly indexed.
  • Check for Indexing: You can also check how many of your new URLs have been indexed by Google. If you notice that some pages aren’t being indexed, you might need to resolve technical issues like missing meta tags or improperly set up redirects.
  • Track Traffic Changes: Monitor traffic patterns before and after the URL change. A decrease in traffic may indicate that the new URLs are not ranking as well, and adjustments may be necessary.

2. Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is another powerful tool for tracking changes in website traffic. Specifically, you can:

  • Track Pageviews: Compare pageview data for your blog posts before and after the URL change. A significant drop in pageviews for the affected articles might suggest an issue with redirects or SEO ranking.
  • Bounce Rate and Engagement: Pay attention to changes in bounce rate or user engagement metrics for blog articles. If users are having trouble finding your content or getting redirected to the wrong pages, these metrics could show higher bounce rates.

3. Analyze Search Rankings

After the URL change, keep an eye on the search engine rankings for your blog articles. A drop in rankings can sometimes happen immediately after a URL change due to the search engines reindexing the new pages. However, with proper 301 redirects in place and quality content, the rankings should stabilize over time.

You can use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to track the rankings of your blog pages for relevant keywords.

Dealing with Potential SEO Pitfalls After URL Changes

While changing your URL paths to blog articles can improve SEO in the long run, there are some potential pitfalls you should be aware of. Here’s how to mitigate any risks:

1. Avoid Duplicate Content

When changing URLs, make sure that the old URL is properly redirected to the new one via 301 redirects. If Google sees both the old and new URLs as separate pages with identical content, it may treat this as duplicate content, which could harm your rankings.

Solution: Set up proper 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new URLs. This ensures that search engines know the new page is the “permanent” version and helps consolidate ranking signals to the new page.

2. Be Mindful of Internal Linking

Internal links are critical for passing SEO value throughout your website. If the internal links still point to the old URLs after the change, it can confuse both users and search engines.

Solution: Review all internal links and update them to reflect the new URL structure. This includes links in blog posts, menus, footers, and other key areas where users navigate your site.

3. Rebuild Backlinks

Backlinks (links from other websites to your content) are an important ranking factor. If the URL change is significant, you may lose the value of backlinks pointing to the old URLs.

Solution: Whenever possible, reach out to websites that have linked to your old URLs and ask them to update the links to point to your new URLs. If this isn’t possible, ensure your 301 redirects are working well so the link equity is passed to the new URL.

4. Monitor for Broken Links

After changing URLs, it’s easy to overlook the impact on other pages that may have been linking to your blog articles. Broken links, either from external or internal sources, can negatively affect SEO and user experience.

Solution: Use a broken link checker (like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Ahrefs) to identify any 404 errors on your site. Fix these by updating the links or adding redirects as needed.

Impact of URL Changes on Website Analytics

Changing URLs can also have an effect on the data you see in your analytics. Here are a few considerations when it comes to your website’s analytics after the URL change:

1. Traffic Drops and Fluctuations

When changing URLs, there may be an initial dip in traffic, especially if the new URLs haven’t been properly indexed or the redirects aren’t functioning correctly. However, if everything is set up properly, the traffic should recover as Google reindexes the new pages.

2. Bounce Rate Changes

Sometimes, a URL change can confuse returning visitors, especially if the content they expect to see is no longer where they thought it was. This could cause them to leave the page quickly, leading to an increase in bounce rate.

Solution: Use the data in Google Analytics to identify which pages have the highest bounce rates and investigate if any changes need to be made to the page content or structure.

3. Event Tracking and Conversions

If you have specific event tracking (e.g., clicks, form submissions) or conversion goals set up for your blog articles, make sure to update those settings in your analytics account. Failing to do so could result in missing out on valuable data.

Final Thoughts on Changing URL Paths for Blog Articles

Changing the URL path for blog articles on your website is a critical process that can help improve SEO, user experience, and overall website structure. However, it must be approached carefully and methodically to avoid potential pitfalls, like broken links or traffic loss.

By following best practices for URL structuring, setting up 301 redirects, and monitoring the performance of your site after the change, you can ensure a smooth transition. Additionally, keeping an eye on analytics and search performance will help you gauge the effectiveness of your URL changes and make adjustments as necessary.

Read More: How to Change the URL “blog/rr-events-4/rr-events-42” in Odoo