PageRank 0? Yikes!
A couple of weeks ago (December 1, 2006) I decided to move this site to WordPress. Prior to the move I had been using a homegrown solution written in ASP. I went down the ASP route years ago because there simply wasn't an alternative that appealed to me. But WordPress has become such a great blogging system that I felt compelled to make the move.
The problem with switching platforms is the resulting change in URLs for every post. This sort of change can have a detrimental effect on one's organic search traffic. But since this blog is my own, I thought it'd be a good real-world test to see how Google, Yahoo, and MSN react to URL changes.
First of all, note that all old URLs are now being redirected (301 permanent redirects) to matching URLs under WordPress. I've confirmed the functioning of these redirects with a few server header checkers as well as manual tests with my web browser. After the conversion, I also immediately regenerated my XML sitemaps and RSS feeds to avoid confusing the search engines.
Two weeks after the change here's what I've noticed:
- My blog's Google PageRank is now 0. It used to be 4 or 5 depending on the day you checked it. This bothers me somewhat, but I'm hoping it's temporary.
- Google has picked up the new URLs, but only 50 of them. 100+ posts don't appear in Google anymore, not even as supplemental entries.
- Yahoo has picked up the new URLs -- all 250+ of them. There are only a handful of old URLs still in their index. This is a good thing.
- MSN lists 1100+ blog pages. At first this seemed odd, but it quickly became apparent that MSN was holding on to the old URLs as well as the new ones. But there's evidence that it recognizes that the old pages are no longer active because none of them include a description whereas all the new pages do have descriptions. I'm hoping the old URLs will drop out completely soon.
In terms of traffic levels, they so far remain unchanged. My AdSense earnings have dropped a bit though. I suspect this is more a seasonal issue, rather than being related to the URL changes. Still, it's something I'll be keeping my eye on.
so what exactly causes such a drop in pagerank, i mean is it really that vital to the success of ones website?
This is an old post but a standing problem up to now. My site's PR dropped to 0 after changing my permalink structure.
Lucas,
I'm glad you found a plugin to take care of your redirect needs. I continue to be amazed at all the good work people are doing with WordPress plugins these days.
Yes, I did a couple of stints at CIBC. While at Waterloo I did a couple of co-op terms there. And once I graduated I had a contract with the same group at CIBC. I was the building close to Yorkdale mall.
Thanks for the info Marios, that was actually quite helpful. I took a look at my .htaccess file, decided that looked a little complicated, thought about putting in php on every page to redirect, as my ISP (BlueHost) suggested, and then realized someone must've encountered this before.
Which led me over to a WordPress plugin that does the redirect for you (http://fucoder.com/code/permalink-redirect/). I know it wouldn't have really worked for your situation, but it worked great for me. Thanks again for info.
I also noticed on your resume that you worked at CIBC a number of years ago. I work at a major financial firm here in Toronto and do quite a bit of work around search and metadata. Small world, isn't it?
Lucas,
How you set up redirects will depend on what web server software you or your hosting company is using. You'll need to find that out first.
As for friendly URLs, that functionality is built in to WordPress. You need to find the permalinks option in the administration tool. Note that setting up friendly URLs is a two-step process. The first is to configure the URLs that you want them from the WordPress console and the second is to configure your web server properly to handle the friendly URLs.
Sorry for not having specifics. The steps needed really depend on your web server software. The good news is that if set up properly, redirects will ensure that any old links will continue to function.
Interesting that your PageRank dropped to 0 -- I also hope it's a temporary issue that will get resolved for you.
Your new URL/search engine indexing issues are particularly interesting to me though. I currently have my pages set up in WordPress' default '?p1' format, but wanted to change over to something that included the names of my post, so that it would be something like '?this-is-a-post'.
I wasn't sure how this would affect the links people already had to my posts though. I hadn't really thought of using redirects. Any hints on how you got the redirects functioning (I don't think I've created a redirect)?