If you ask any SEO, changing URLs is a scary thing. If you can avoid it, most SEOs say try to avoid it. John Mueller of Google said on Twitter the other day “I’d really recommend keeping the same URLs for the long run.”
Here is the tweet:
I’d really recommend keeping the same URLs for the long run.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) July 22, 2019
Now, if you have to change URLs, Google is much better at dealing with it assuming you set up the redirects properly. But redirects are essential when changing URLs. Why bother with redirects when you don’t have to is how I feel. It takes the same amount of effort to keep the same URL than it does to set up a redirect.
Forum discussion at Twitter.