Google for years has recommended against SEOs changing URLs for the purpose of adding keywords to the URL. If you can keep the same URLs and change other things, that is your best bet. The other day, Google's John Mueller not only doubled-down on that recommendation but added that you'd be lucky to end up in the same place after changing URLs.
John said when it comes to changing URLs, "if you're lucky, it'll end up in the same place." Meaning, if you do everything right and Google does everything right, which is rare to have both align, then you'd be lucky to have the new URL rank in the same position as the old URL in Google Search.
Here are those tweets in context:
Minimal. If you're making something new, keep it in mind. If you have something existing, I'd leave it until you do a bigger redesign. Tweaking URLs on their own results in temporary drops, technical nightmares, and if you're lucky, it'll end up in the same place.
— 👓 johnmu? People are not cats 👓 (@JohnMu) October 26, 2022
Just last month, Google's John Mueller said again you should avoid changing URLs for SEO reasons. But you can check the archives here and see how many times we wrote this story over the past dozens of years. Don't change URLs if you do not have to.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
