Google Says You Should Avoid Changing URLs Just For SEO Reasons

[djbaxter]

Google Says You Should Avoid Changing URLs Just For SEO Reasons​

by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable
Sept 29, 2022

Google's John Mueller has put down some strong language against changing your URLs for SEO reasons alone. He basically said in most cases, changing URLs will have a negative impact on SEO and that you probably should not change URLs just for SEO reasons.

This came up in two different sites, one on Reddit and the other on Twitter over the course of the same 24-hour period.

John wrote on Reddit "If you're an SEO, and billing by the hour to implement this change, then it'll help your bottom line. Will it help the site? Very, very rarely (if they have terrible URLs that you can't even copy & paste, maybe). Will a change negatively affect the site for a while until it's reprocessed? Probably. Some risk + usually no gain = ... ?"

 

[recurpost]

When they say very very rarely they are neither denying nor confirming. Google is known for making such statements to scare webmasters into behaving a certain way.

I have personally seen pages ranking after changing their URLs to include target keywords for that page. Would that be an example of terrible URLs? I don't think so.

 

[djbaxter]

Of couyrse you don'tg know whetherf ot not those pages would have ranked without the URL change, no?

 

[recurpost]

Of couyrse you don'tg know whetherf ot not those pages would have ranked without the URL change, no?

I can’t know that, but the fact that changing URLs moved the needle suggests that it is a ranking factor that matters.

Have you not seen it working in your experience?

 

[inbound WSJ]

When they say very very rarely they are neither denying nor confirming. Google is known for making such statements to scare webmasters into behaving a certain way.

I have personally seen pages ranking after changing their URLs to include target keywords for that page. Would that be an example of terrible URLs? I don't think so.

Exactly. I have made these changes and they help. Even redriecting an entire domain to contain keywords helped tremendously.

they use PR to persuade and scare folks into following rules.

Experienced SEO's know better.