arnelaj asked
Member (0 upvotes)

Will changing global canonical URL affect Rankings? (Capitalization in URL)

Hello everyone,

I would really appreciate some insight on how a website change could potentially affect our existing SEO - as we rank highly on certain keywords and have an established website already.

I know that having all lowercase URLs is best for SEO. However, the team before me created our website with example.com/Web as our root domain. So everything on our site is contained in this "Web" folder - all of our URLs start with example.com/Web/etc..

This means that both web and Web versions of each URL on our site exist.

There is currently a global canonical tag pointing to the capitalized "Web" version.

Now the issue is we are switching our site to Webflow and they do not allow capital letters in URLs. If we change our canonical tag and point everything to the lowercase “web” instead of “Web” – will that mess up our existing SEO? I am worried that it could potentially drop our rankings. Or will it not matter and Google will simply switch it over to the lowercase version?

Advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

#canonical#rankings#seo#capitalization#capital#webflow

KnowOneSpecial
Moderator (84 upvotes)

Use a 301 redirect.

Redirect all urls with "/Web/" to "/web/".

You may see a small ding in traffic but it will come back. Just be patient.

After a little while, you can remove the "/Web/" folder altogether.

Good advice?

Comments 0

arnelaj Member

Hello! Thank you for your input. That's what I was leaning towards doing, thanks for explaining. Will I need to also update my canonical or sitemap? Or will Google see the redirects and understand to point everything towards the lowercase version? Thank you so much

KnowOneSpecial
Moderator (84 upvotes)

Change the canonical..

Yes, while it is true eventually Google will figure it out.

But... if you do it properly, then the transition will be faster and smoother and you will not lose valuable traffic waiting for Google to figure it out.

If this is a money site, then "Yes" change the canonical..

Good advice?

Comments 0

Will changing global canonical URL affect Rankings? (Capitalization in URL)

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