Meta Refresh tag on cache pages- GRRR!
-
Hi guys,
All of our product pages originate in a URL with a unique number but it redirects to an SEO url for the user. These product pages have blocks on the page and these blocks are automatically populated with our database of content.
Here's an example of the redirect in place:
redirects to
The development team did this for 2 reasons. 1) our internal search needs the unique numbered urls for search and 2) it allows quick redirects as pages are cached.
The problem I face is this, the redirects from the cached are being tagged with 'meta refresh', yup, they are 302.
The development team said they could stop caching and respond dynamically with a 301 but this would bring in a delay. Speed wise, the cached pages load within 22ms and dynamically 530ms, so yeah half a second more.
Currently cached pages just do a meta refresh tagged redirect and I want to move away from this.
What would you guys recommend in such a situation? I feel like unless I place a 301, I'll be losing out on rank juice.
-
No problem at all.
As for a chain of redirects, this isn't how Google will see it. They even say that a redirect from one page to another is fine... it's when you get into the realms of 'page a --> page b --> page c' that it will become a problem.
A temporary redirect when used for a permanent move is a little dodgy to say the least and should be corrected. Also, what is the chance of 20 people hitting the same page at exactly the same second? And even if they do, it just means they each wait half a second rather than 22ms - I can see no problem with that whatsoever. Even at half a second, this is still very fast.
You can still cache pages through htaccess if you want - doesn't mean you have to ignore caching just because you do things the right way
Andy
-
Developer's argument is that a chain of redirects could add significant time to the real page. So the 1/2 second load time could go up if 20 people try and access the page at the same time. No good having a great page if it takes too long but then I'm going "c'mon we're not amazon or apple"
I'm with you though, I rather have the correct 301 redirect than a meta refresh, but i'm no expert when it comes to caching knowledge. My understanding is just that, it's a page that is cached so the system can load it quick for the search engine, that's it.
Do you think any additional value is there from an SEO standpoint in the caching? I know Google records a cached page but yeah, I see your point, better to get rid of the temporary redirect.
Thanks Andy, appreciate the feedback
-
I would sooner take the extra half a second to get this done correctly and as long as pages don't take like 4-5 seconds to load, then this really won't be an issue for Google. Don't forget, page speed is only one of hundreds of primary signals - content and quality are much higher up on the Google radar.
Remember, a 302 is supposed to be a temporary move. Do this the right way and don't look back
Andy
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
-
UK version of site showing US Cache and meta description
Hi Fellow Moz'ers We seem to have an issue where some of our UK site is showing meta descriptions from our US site in the serp's and when you check the cache: of the site it's brining up the .com instead of the .co.uk site. example: cache:https://www.tinyme.co.uk/name-labels shows the US site We've checked the href lang tags and they look ok to me (but i'm not an expert) https://www.tinyme.co.uk/name-labels" hreflang="en-gb"/> https://www.tinyme.com/name-labels" hreflang="en-us"/> https://www.tinyme.com.au/name-labels" hreflang="x-default" /> https://www.tinyme.com.au/name-labels" hreflang="en-au"/> We've had a search around and seen people have similar issues, but cant seem to find a definitive solution.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tinyme1 -
Dynamic pages
Hello Team, How can we create dynamic pages or more pages on website but maintaining SEO standards.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Page 1 Reached, Further Page Improvements and What Next ?
Moz, I have a particularly tricky competitive keyword that i have finally climbed our website to the 10th position of page 1, i am particularly pleased about this as all of the website and content is German which i have little understanding of and i have little support on this, I am pleased with the content and layout of the page and i am monitoring all Google Analytics values very closely, as well as the SERP positions, So as far as further progression with this page and hopefully climbing further up page 1, where do you think i should focus my efforts ? Page Speed optimization?, Building links to this page ?, blogging on this topic (with links) , Mobile responsive design (More difficult), further improvements to pages and content linked from this page ? Further improvements to the website in general?,further effort on tracking visitors and user experience monitoring (Like setting up Crazyegg or something?) Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated, Thanks all, James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Antony_Towle0 -
Is it a problem that Google's index shows paginated page urls, even with canonical tags in place?
Since Google shows more pages indexed than makes sense, I used Google's API and some other means to get everything Google has in its index for a site I'm working on. The results bring up a couple of oddities. It shows a lot of urls to the same page, but with different tracking code.The url with tracking code always follows a question mark and could look like: http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example http://www.MozExampleURL.com?another-tracking-examle http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example-3 etc So, the only thing that distinguishes one url from the next is a tracking url. On these pages, canonical tags are in place as: <link rel="canonical<a class="attribute-value">l</a>" href="http://www.MozExampleURL.com" /> So, why does the index have urls that are only different in terms of tracking urls? I would think it would ignore everything, starting with the question mark. The index also shows paginated pages. I would think it should show the one canonical url and leave it at that. Is this a problem about which something should be done? Best... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
H1 Tags and HTML5
I have read that now you can have multiple h1 tags on a page without it negatively impacting SEO. Previously it was advised to only have 1 h1 tag on a page. Example: with the new semantic mark up you could have separate h1 tags for the header, article, aside and footer. Is this really the case?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Content Landing Page
Hey Mozzers, I wanted to get some opinions on here. I'm going to be building out the content on my site a lot of the next couple of months, and have recently started thinking about creating a content landing page. For those not familiar with the concept it's the idea of building this page that basically just pulls together all the content you've written on a specific subject & serves as hopefully a link magnet & destination for people interested in the topic. So my question is this, I am just outlining all of the different posts & areas that I want to cover on specific topics & it is a lot. I'm talking ~20 posts on each subject. Do you think that would be too much content to try & get on one page? Should I break it down to a more finite 5-7 links to high quality articles per page, or create basically this monster guide that links to all these different articles I'll create. Looking forward to getting your opinion, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chris.kent0 -
How would you handle 12,000 "tag" pages on Wordpress site?
We have a Wordpress site where /tag/ pages were not set to "noindex" and they are driving 25% of site's traffic (roughly 100,000 visits year to date). We can't simply "noindex" them all now, or we'll lose a massive amount of traffic. We can't possibly write unique descriptions for all of them. We can't just do nothing or a Panda update will come by and ding us for duplicate content one day (surprised it hasn't already). What would you do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak1 -
Canonical Tag Uses Source Title and Meta Data?
When optimising a regional same language micro site within a sub folder of a .com it dawned on me that our use of the hreflang and canonical meta elements will render individual elements such as H1 and title obsolete. As a canonical tag takes the canonical source title and meta right? It would still have value in optimising localised headings though? Appreciate any thoughts, suggestions (o:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 3wh0