Hi all,
I'm currently managing a VirtueMart webshop at https://beterpet.nl/
and have encountered two important issues that I hope someone can help me with.
Drop in visibility and sales after URL structure change
Recently, the structure of our product URLs had to be changed for technical and performance reasons. All product URLs now include /webshop/. This change was necessary to fix a bandwidth issue previously, all products were loading on the homepage, which caused performance and indexing problems.
After this change, many product URLs indexed by Google became invalid, resulting in broken links and products no longer showing in Google Shopping. We've since:
Created a new sitemap and submitted it in Google Search Console
Re-uploaded the product feed to Google Merchant Center
Confirmed that products are being reindexed and URLs now include /webshop/
However, sales have dropped sharply, and product visibility remains lower than before. I'm unsure whether this is due to reindexing delays, SEO issues, or a configuration problem in VirtueMart. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Thijs
Adding a 301 redirect in .htaccess generally helps, but I am not sure how to achieve that, if your products were on the first level.
You cannot set a general rule to redirect everything from / to /webshop.
You might want to add 301s for important products, and all categories.
STS
Hi,
Thanks for your response. The products are divided into categories such as "men/men-winter-caps/classic-men-winter-caps" and "women/women-caps/...". Even though these were on the first level, I was still able to add "/webshop" in front of /women and /men using a 301 redirect. This worked, and the products have now been approved by Google Merchant Center.
I'm also in contact with Google, and they advised me to give it about a week so all changes can be properly processed.
I'll keep you updated.
Thijs