Cut /shop/products/category/ down to /category/. +31% CTR.

Cut /shop/products/category/ down to /category/. +31% CTR.

Client's URLs were /shop/products/category/subcat/item. Bloated, repetitive, the keyword buried at the end.

What I shipped:
— Collapsed to /category/item across the catalog
— 301 map for ~2,800 URLs, ran it through a redirect checker for chains
— Updated internal links in the DB, not just relying on redirects

8 weeks out: rankings held (no drop, which is the win on a migration). But the shorter URLs showing in SERPs lifted CTR ~31% on the top 50 pages — keyword now visible in the displayed URL instead of truncated.

Update internal links directly. Letting 2,800 redirects carry your link graph is how you bleed crawl budget.