Explaining 301 redirects instead of 302

[JohnW-UK]

I am trying to explain in layman's terms to a client why using 302 for their redirects (which they have done themselves) is not right. There view is they do not seem to listen or believe what is being said to them and do not want to do permanent damage to the old domain so are using 302 redirects. I have explained over and over 301 is needed but I do not seem to be good at communicating this. Can someone give me a good example or description I can use to get my point across?

[ThompsonPaul]

Keri, the problem with this analogy is that it reinforces the concept of a fallback or safety net.

Who wouldn't feel better going off to college knowing that if by some chance it didn't work out, you'd still have Mom & Dad keeping your nice warm bed and comfy room waiting for you.

That's exactly the unfortunate attitude FreshFire is up against - the site owners think it's more valuable to keep that fallback in place than to fully commit to the new site.

Which is why I suggested that maybe there's more to the issue than just "not getting it".

Paul

[ThompsonPaul]

If you really think there isn't an underlying problem & he just needs a more comprehensible explanation, the best luck I've had explaining this to clients is by getting away from anything technical and from temporary/permanent and even talking about redirects at all.

I explain to them how they are actually wasting resources in competition with themselves, allowing others to gain success at their expense. (You're not gonna beat 'em with logic - gotta hit 'em in the pocketbook)

So... goes something like...

Google decides how much a site is worth. The more the site is worth, the higher it shows in the results.

Google currently thinks you have two sites for the same topic, so they are effectively competing against each other to try to gain points from Google.

Let's say your current site has a value of 8, and your old site has a value of 5.

But your biggest competitor's site has a value of 9.

So overall even though you have more "Google Value", you've split it over 2 sites so neither one of them alone has the power to beat the single site that has a score of 9.

So you're losing business opportunities to your competitor because Google places him above both of your other sites.

But if you use the technical tools available (called 301 redirecting) you can tell Google to combine the values of your 2 sites to determine the new value. You won't get to just add the two totals together (Google isn't quite that generous) but your combined site will get about 8+3 for a total of 11.

So now, once the changes have worked their way through the system, your competitor (9) is now losing opportunities to you (11) and must play catch up. And you accomplished that not with a lot of very expensive new work, but by using the existing tools that were designed just for this purpose.

Do you want to sit in the background and compete against yourself, or get out front and compete against (and have a much better chance of winning over) your competitor?

There are lots of analogies that can be created to put this concept into everyday terms, but I find in this case it's better to stick closer to the actual Search Engine paradigm.

Paul

[ThompsonPaul]

When an otherwise smart person seems to obstinantly insist on ignoring good advice, I always look for a hidden or unstated reason that might better explain the actions, rather than just writing it off as "he just doesn't get it".

I suspect you may need to dig deeper to find out what it is he's afraid of that makes him think he needs to avoid "doing permanent damage to the old domain". I strongly suspect there's an underlying issue there. Maybe he doesn't fully agree with the direction of the new site? Doesn't trust its new business model or tools? You may need to do some real digging to figure out why he seems to feel so strongly that he needs to keep his failsafe or fallback position.

Paul

[JohnW-UK]

- yay! I will try.

You see it's harder to explain than you think!

[KeriMorgret]

How about a 302 is when you go off to college in another state (you still keep your voter registration, your permanent address, your license plate, etc in your home state), and a 301 is when you are moving for good to another place and you're setting up residency there?

[KeriMorgret]

Do you think the graphic that Dr. Pete created might help at all?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes

[JohnW-UK]

Exactly!!! lol - Any ideas? It's hard to explain to a non pc person....

[KeriMorgret]

Sanket, the poster of the question understands what link juice is, and why a 301 is needed. He's looking for a way to explain it to his clients to convince them.

[JohnW-UK]

I know what it means! lol I am trying to think of a way to explain it to someone not into SEO or website i.e. a laymans response! - How to phrase it in simple terms....

[SanketPatel]

Link juice means ranking power you can beat your competitor for ranking in Google. If any DoFollow site contains high page rank then you get high link juice from that site, if that site contains more outbound links then you get less linkjuice from that site. For example read this link.

http://thekeywordacademy.com/link-juice-explained

[JohnW-UK]

They don't understand link juice....

[SanketPatel]

Hi,

302 redirect is temporary bases and it does not passes any link juice and inbound links of that page, in most of cases it does not use.  302 you can use when your site is temporary under-construction and your content temporarily moved somewhere else. 302 refers to the HTTP status code so when you open that page and age does not forund you get 404 status code. If you are using 302 redirect then Create a custom error page for 404s which will give visitors that encounter your error page an indication of how to get back on track. Read this link for knowing more about how to use 302 http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-discussing-302-redirects/

301 redirect is permanent redirect and pases between 90-99% of link juice and inbound links  and page rank.  It is best method to implementing redirects on website. 301 redirect is preferable for both you and search engine also.

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection