Software Update: URL Overhaul

We are excited to announce that we have completed an overhaul to the URL structure of all pages on our sites. As the URL is the first impression that users and search engines have of a web page, our team has worked hard to improve the look and function of URIs, with user experience and SEO benefits in mind.

This change is quite possibly the largest change we've made to the platform, and took many months of planning, testing, fixing, and testing more. Aside from implementing the new structure, we then had to write the scripts to set automatic redirects for hundreds of thousands of pages. It was a huge undertaking!

This update is currently live on all sites on the Great Dental Websites platform.

What Has Changed?

URLs on all sites have been updated with the main goal of removing excess words from the URI (any part of the URL that comes after the domain name), and creating a more logical URL structure. Some of the words that were removed from URIs include we, you, he, she, it, they, me, us, him, and, at, behind, below, beside, between, etc. URIs were also updated to be more to the point, while still including important keywords. 

Specific example of this change to see the new simplifications:

• Before: fakewebsiteaddress.com/Contact-Us-Schedule-Appointment
• After: fakewebsitesaddress.com/contact

• Before: fakewebsiteaddress.com/Frequently-Asked-Questions
• After: fakewebsitesaddress.com/faqs

• Before: fakewebsiteaddress.com/faq/pain-dental-procedures-dentists-patient/26399
• After: fakewebsiteaddress.com/faq/root-canal-discomfort/26399

How Will this Affect Websites?

This new URL structure can improve user experience, as well as SEO efforts. 

With these updated URIs, crawlers like Google will find this URL structure more robot-friendly and can crawl the URL to see what is on the page faster and easier.

As we mentioned, we've already written the redirects for all pages, so there won't be any discontinuity for previously written and indexed pages.

While Google works to process these changes there may be emails from Google Search Console coming to you, but the SEO team has been working to address any one-off issues that arise to ensure that all websites are being indexed correctly.

If you have any questions on changes to your URL structure, contact your marketing coach at Great Dental Websites and we'll be happy to discuss this new update with you!