2

We had more than 500 pages indexed, we are a relatively new site but I think we have good content so Google was ok with our pages.

Most of this pages were profiles and had a url structure like /place/place/work One of our engineers changed the url structure and with that, updated the sitemap.

The old url's starting throwing 404 because he didn't put any 301 redirection to the new ones and Google was not happy at all about this.

Google de inxeded most of the pages and now we have only 75 indexed and 10 of them are profiles.

This engineer was obviously at fault, but 2 weeks have passed and our indexed pages are still 75.

Any tip on this? We have put a lot of effort for this pages to be seo friendly but it seems google dont trust us anymore :(

Thanks!

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

It's not that Google is unhappy with you but rather that you are seeing a typical "new site" spidering/update schedule.

Very few sites get indexed/updated by Google daily and almost none of those sites are new. What most likely happened is your site was indexed based on the first iteration, then those pages dropped after the mistake and now you have to wait a little while for the indexer to catch up and republish.

tl;dr you may be panicking too soon. Just be patient and things will get re-indexed so long as you remain stable.

PS - You can still add the 301 redirection...

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    As a side note for the OP, it is not always necessary to add 301 redirects when the new pages can be found easily and the old pages are gone. Google does prefer a 404 or 410 when a page is gone. You only add a 301 when it is important for users or to preserve any link value which is unlikely for profile pages.
    – closetnoc
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 23:30

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.