Changed Permalinks. Google Showing 404 Errors.

  • The website is https://www.therouteexchange.com

    I recently changed the permalinks for 30+ categories that are being used for the “Display Categories Widget”. The changes were basic…like “florida-routes” to “florida-routes-for-sale”. However, I just looked at my Google webmaster tools and I have 404 errors now for every category/page I changed. The thing I don’t understand is that I cannot find any broken links on my page…everything directs to the new permalinks. I am using Yoast SEO for my sitemap. The sitemap url is https://www.therouteexchange.com/sitemap_index.xml The categories sitemap looks like it has updated with all of the “-routes-for-sale” additions. Any guess why Google is still running checks for pages that aren’t in my sitemaps?

    Thank you in advance.

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  • It takes Google a while to stop checking broken URLs once it has discovered them even if there are no links to those broken links. In fact, it can take a long, long time. I’ve had Google visit dead URLs after over a year.

    Note that even though Google is reporting errors in GWT, it doesn’t mean that it is directing traffic to those pages. Google is pretty quick about stopping that for dead URLs.

    The ideal would be to have 301 redirects set up for the old categories to the new categories. You can do this via plugins, htaccess file, or even custom PHP code.

    Thread Starter getgolfed

    (@getgolfed)

    Thank you for the feedback. I’ll search out a 301 redirect plugin and give that a try. Have a great weekend.

    +1 with Marios

    And yes try to learn more about .htaccess file and 301 redirects, even if you work with a plugin, it’s important in the process (requires to learn basic regex but worth the time spent, also there are many good tutorials on the net).

    Nice week end too,

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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