New to SEO. How do I set up a 301 Redirect? What Else should I do?
-
Hello,
I am new to web design. I designed my own site using dreamweaver and did all my seo on my own, I read a few books. Long story short I rank on the bottom of page 1 just after 3 months and the keywords are highly competitive. Now, I am up against some heavy hitters from national brands versus my local real estate site.
I don't have a 301 redirect, and am not sure what else I should be doing to get my site ranked higher. I have back links from various sites, ( non-paid ) so it's what others call white hat.
When I grade my site on website grader I get a great score versus the sites that are higher than me. I'm guessing my sites age is an issue.
I guess I'm looking for some guidance.
Thank you all,
Here is my site to view.
-
I use Dreamhost, Amazon Cloud (AWS) and Rackspace. Nearly all the stuff you'll need can be done on Dreamhost. Dreamhost is a good web hosting company.
-
WHich hosting company do you prefer?
-
You will be limited to whatever Yahoo allows you to do. They aren't that flexible. Think about it this way. Have you ever heard of a large company use Yahoo? If you keep hanging around in these forums, you will outgrow Yahoo really quick.
-
Ok, I have yahoo as my host. I can't seem to find the htaccess. Any ideas?
-
Here, read this: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
Print it and go to Starbucks.
Oh, one other thing. To make things faster in web development, I have a design made in PSD and then have it coded into WordPress. That way I don't have to mess with Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is fine, but not when I'm working on sites that I expect to grow. With WordPress (and many CMS'), it automatically 301s old pages. If not, then there's a plugin.
-
Thanks, I'll research it. I use Yahoo as my host company, so I'm sure they have htaccess.
-
Without knowing your setup its hard to say whats best to do since there is many ways to do a 301. However an easy way is to use htaccess ( if your server support this ) but most of them does.
More info how to do a 301 with htaccess can be found here
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Penguin and 301 redirects...
Hi, I have several questions about starting a new domain due to Penguin. The site is: http://bajajlaw.com. Quick backstory: This site was hit every time Penguin rolled out. No clean-up was done until October 2015. At that time, I took over the project. My efforts include: (1) Remove'em, (2) manual removal, (3) and the Disavow Tool. The HP went from being at around #50 for the target KW (San Diego criminal defense attorney) to about #25. Never really moved higher than that. However, I redid the content for the internal pages (DV, Theft Crimes, etc.) and they are all ranking fairly well (first page or top of 2nd). In short, the penalty only seems to affect the HP, not the internal pages. Instead of waiting for Penguin to roll-out, client wants to move forward with new domain. My questions are as follow: 1. Can I use the same content for the internal pages and 301 from the old internal pages to the new? 2. Should I 301 from the old to the new domain for the HP, or not? 3. If I do a 301 from an internal page to a new internal page, does that have the same effect of doing a 301 from the old HP to the new HP? I have read various opinions on this topic. I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who has experience doing this sort of thing. Thanks. P.s. I'm inclined to wait for P4 to rollout, but given that nobody seems to know when that might be, it's hard for me to advise client to keep waiting for it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
301 redirects cross domains
Hi Moz Community. We have a client that has Website A and Website B. Website A is going to be replaced by Website C, a new website and brand. Some products sold on Website A are going to be split out to Website B & C. i.e. Say Website A sells eight products - then four will go to Website B and four to Website C. OUR QUESTION Technically we know we can 301 redirect the Website A products to the relevant Website B & Website C products. 1. Given this convoluted structure, will there be any negative ramifications for SEO? and; 2. Which website would you redirect the homepage to, B or C?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WCR0 -
Clarification around 301 redirects.
I’ve come across numerous blogs recently that suggest that SEOs should NOT do bulk re-directs to a category page. This has come as something of a surprise (doh!!) and I feel like I should already know this. It does seem like there is lots disagreement here so I thought that I’d ask what people’s opinions were to make sure that I get my thinking straight. I've read all the main Moz blog posts on this topic and, although really useful, they've left me none the wiser around a few specific questions. Here’s some more detail about the situation. We’re currently consolidating a lot of content into a main blog, which will be the focal point of new blogs posts that are created. This is different to the past, where we tended to create separate blogs for different products on separate domains. I’m currently considering how we move content across from one the older blogs to this new blog (which will soon sit on a subfolder of our main domain). I have three (!) questions: 1) Could you confirm that doing bulk re-directs a category page is bad? I already know that doing them all to the homepage is an error. 2) Should I re-direct the home page of the old blog on a separate domain to the relevant category page on the new site? The category page is related, but does not cover the EXACT topic. The category page covers our replacement product offering. It I shouldn't do this, where should I re-direct the old blog domain to? 3) I’ve recommended that we set up 301 redirects on a one-to-one basis, redirecting each piece of content to its new location on the old site. What about content that has been earmarked for removal and for which there is no obvious alternative? My previous recommendation has been to re-direct these pages to the most relevant category page on the new blog. Would it be better to let this 404 or, as an alternative, create a custom 404 for the users on the new blog highlighting the new content that we offer? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
301 Redirect To Another 301 Redirect
Hi, We have a client with an old domain that they want to redirect to their primary domain. They also have a few older domains pointing to the old domain. Do you recommend leaving them as redirects that point to the old domain? This will create a redirect to a redirect situation. Or, is it better to go ahead and redirect those older domains to the primary one's, removing one layer of redirect? Thank you! Jessie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JessieT0 -
Big 301 Redirect Help!
Hey guys I need a little help with setting up a big 301. Background: It's a bit of a mess as the old site is a total mess after being online for 10 years plus. It has html and php pages, and a mod rewrite to redirect old html links to the newer php version of those pages. It's now moving to a new site and as the domain name and URL structure has changed we can't use any fancy regex and have to do a page to page redirect. There are 1500 pages to redirect. However, the old site has thousands of linking root domains, and some of these are to the old html pages (which currently redirect to the php pages) and some to the newer php pages. Question: My initial plan was to leave the mod rewrite and only redirect the php pages. That means 1500 individual redirects instead of 3000 if I individually redirect both the php and html pages. I'm not sure what's best to be honest. We don't really want multiple hops in the redirect (html>php>new site), but surely 1500 redirects is better than 3000! Does anyone have any advice on which option may be best, or even a better option? Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarveyP0 -
301 Redirect to a new domain, Need linkbuilding ideas
Hi, I just 301 redirected my 3 year old domain to a new domain which was created yesterday. Now i want to start link building to my new domain. Should i start slowly by publishing 4-5 articles on article directories and a 1 press release a week? Can someone suggest me some ideas on how to handle a new domain. Will be waiting for replies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dex3783783780 -
Lost all ranking after site-wide 301 redirect
Hi all I did a complete site-wide 310 redirect about 3 weeks ago for a site that had consistently been in Pos 1-5 for my targeted keyword ("low glycemic foods"). I changed the domain from low-glycemic-foods-org to low-glycemic-diet.com because I thought that was a more appropriate title and thru my readings I believed that if I carefully followed the recommended procedures I would quickly regain my SERP. Webmaster tools is showing that I have over 800 inbound links - many from very trustworthy sources including .edu, etc BUT my home page is nowhere to be found for the keyword search "low glycemic diet". My Seomoz onpage SEO score is an "A" Any enlightenment would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | veezer0 -
Can penalties be passed via 301 redirect?
I have a well established domain that's been hit with some penalties. It hasn't been nuked off the map, just downgraded, especially on short-tail, one word type queries. I'm planning on redirecting this domain to another well established domain. The domains already have a history of lots of interlinking and are very similar from a subject matter standpoint. I feel that the penalized domain has been hit with an "over-optimization" of link anchor text penalty (I'm hoping it's algorithmic, but it could be manual). My question is if anyone has ever heard of a penalty like this being transferred to another domain through a 301 redirect. My hope is that the penalty just puts a cap on how much juice the redirect can pass, rather than transferring the penalty to the other domain itself. Any thoughts on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOMG1