My top page was:
https://www.joeldare.com/wiki/using_awk_on_csv_files
It showed 311 views on my top pages report and was my top page for a long time.
Then I redirected it to:
https://joeldare.com/using-awk-on-csv-files
In a few days I should check and see the result of that. Did the page just disappear from my stats?
I checked this on July 11, 2025 and the page is now gone completely. So these 311 redirects are not as powerful as the original pages. Redirecting causing a loss of the traffic.
I don’t know if this is a design problem on my current site or just that Google doesn’t automatically trust new pages on redirect and they have to build up reputation over time again. Or, maybe the algorithm is different now but it doesn’t update unless you do something like a redirect? I’m not sure, but it definitely kills the traffic to redirect it.
Written by Joel Dare on June 20, 2025 and updated July 11, 2025.
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