Hi there, I have edited all product URL handles to be more descriptive and match my product titles to improve my overall SEO standing, as prior URLs handles had an assortment of numbers or random text. In doing, I have noticed that when going to product > Search engine listing preview > URL handle > edit > create redirect i say yes > save. Now on google I see the following attached image “domain plainclothingstore” I see my old URL handle. I click on it and get the second image error. What is happening here, I thought this would at least redirect. I am aware it may take some time for google to take in the new URL handles.
It takes some time for google to index everything. It’s best if you set up a proper redirection from the old url to the new one. But you have to do it on your website.
Hello @RyanAnderson
You should setup proper redirection. You can follow this article to setup proper redirection. https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/menus-and-links/url-redirect
After setting up the redirects, head on to Google Search Console and put all the new URLs into URL inspection, then request for indexing. For sites that don’t get much Google traffic, it takes days and sometimes weeks before Google realizes there is a new URL. If you submit the new URLs for indexing in Google Search Console, it will expedite the indexing process.
Please see my comment below
Doing the redirects as I mentioned previously on a per item basis from the item page is showing up in this redirection page as well. I believe both methods work as I am seeing the redirects I mentioned above in this link, I just think in not knowing I could access this page, my original approach was the more tedious method. However the redirects I made are showing there at this path provided in the link
Is there any way to do this in bulk on the GSC? I only see a one by one method. I have a few thousand I will need to update.
If all the redirects are showing up correctly on overall redirection pages, this means the redirects have been set up correctly and they should work. If someone has bookmarked the old link somewhere and clicks on it, the person will be successfully redirected to the new URL.
No, you can’t do it in bulk. Google intended the feature to be for someone who has a couple of urgent pages that needs immediate attention to be indexed. If you have a few thousands, either you submit the sitemap to be updated or you can submit up to 10 URLs each day to be prioritized for indexing. This a the limit set by Google. If you have slightly more popular pages or higher priced items (with higher returns), you can request them to be prioritized for indexing. Unfortunately, you have to log in everyday into GSC to do that. There is no way to do this in bulk.
Got it so essentially, in summary, there are three options here (or outcomes):
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Wait for Google to eventually crawl and update those redirects on its own
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Manually go into the GSC and update a handful at a time
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Submit a new sitemap
With option 3 will that jostle my overall search ranking if I manually resubmit a new sitemap?
You can execute both Option #2 and #3 at the same time if you want to hasten the process. Option 3 doesn’t affect overall search ranking, you are just informing Google about your page updates.
Thank you. In the interest of time, considering I am a one person band, I will wait until google crawls them and eventually resolves the issue. If I can I will do 2 and 3 should I find the time. Thank you so much for the help. I will mark this as solved.
Can you help me with this for my store? I booth rent and they will ship it out for me so I have my store and products set to go to their URL I feel like this is hurting my sales on my shopify.