Temporary Redirects on Magento
-
I've recently taken over a client who uses the Magento platform and there was definitely a duplicate issue with his homepage. It redirected www to non www, however the canonical tag was setup wrong and pointing to the www version.
When I looked at OSE for both versions the non www has only 7 linking domains and a page authority of 32. The www version has 24 linking domains and page authority of 39. As the domain is fairly new, I decided to redirect the non www to www and keep the canonical the same. (I changed the internal linking structure etc).
When I run both URLs through this tool: http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-... it's returning a whole bunch of 302, rather than 301 redirects. What's the deal with that? Is that a Magento setting that I can fix or something a little harder?
I'm not sure if it's proper etiquette to post the URL of a client, so if that would help and is OK, please let me know.
Thanks
-
Been looking for this for ages.
Thanks
-
Wouldn't call myself an expert by any stretch, however, I've have set up and still run a few Magento stores.
The reason I asked which version your site is running, is because I believe they rolled out the 301 option in version 1.4.2.0 (based on the release notes I checked). Definitely strange you don't see it when using version 1.5.1.0.
You can solve it instead, as you rightly point out, using a rewrite rule in .htaccess, like the second extra rule from the Creare article:-
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^yourdomain.co.uk [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,NC]
I don't usually find I need this, because Magento solves the www issue with that 301 dropdown menu option which is missing for you.
I don't generally need the first extra rule from that article, either:-
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.php RewriteRule ^(.)index.php$ http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
When I switch on Web Server Rewrites in the Magento backend, and correct the Magento root (if necessary) in .htaccess, as described in that article, the removal of index.php from URLs is usually solved. If you do still have the index.php problem, however, you could solve it in .htaccess too.
I'm definitely not an apache/mod_rewrite expert so I can't vouch for the syntax necessarily, however it certainly looks correct.
If I were you (or your client), I'd also want to get to the bottom of why I don't see that 301 option in Magento, as it could be symptomatic of an incomplete upgrade in the past. It could of course, be something else obvious which I'm missing - definitely worthy of further investigation though.
-
Hi Neil,
1.5.1.0.
Do you have much experience in rewriting htaccess files for Magento? I assume this article pretty much sums it up?
http://www.crearegroup-ecommerce.co.uk/blog/e-commerce-seo/htaccess-rewrites-for-magento-shops.php
Cheers
-
Hey Brad.. that is strange. I guess the next logical question would be which version of Magento is the site running?
-
Haha I only have two options (Yes or No):
| <label for="web_url_redirect_to_base">Redirect to Base URL if requested URL doesn't match it</label> | I.e. redirect from http://example.com/store/ to http://www.example.com/store/ |
-
You should have three options in that dropdown.. No, Yes (302 Found), and Yes (301 Moved Permanently). 301 should be the third option on the list.
-
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the superfast answer, appreciate it.
OK I switched that option from Yes to No. This fixed the temporary redirect problem. However, now both the www and non www versions are returning a 200 response (see http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-check/).
Is this an easy fix in Magento? I know in other systems such as Volusion we don't have access to htaccess. I'm guessing I can't do anything about this and I just have to worry about setting up the correct canonical?
Thanks
-
Hey Brad.. firstly, posting client URLs is fine as far as SEOmoz Q&A is concerned, however, it's entirely up to you in terms of client privacy.
Magento has a setting in the back-end for solving www/non-www canonicalisation (System > Configuration > Web > URL options). You'll see a setting for redirect type ("Auto-redirect to Base URL"), and obviously you'll want to ensure it's set to 301 rather than 302.
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
-
Google ranking 301 redirected vanity urls
We use vanity URLs for offline marketing. An example vanity URL would be www.clientsite.com/promotion, this URL 301 redirects to a page on the site with tracking parameter ex: www.clientsite.com/mainpage?utm_source=source&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=xyz. We are running into issues with Google ignoring the 301 redirect and ranking these vanity URLs instead of the actual page on the website. Any suggestions on how to resolve?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalhound0 -
Does Google Index URLs that are always 302 redirected
Hello community Due to the architecture of our site, we have a bunch of URLs that are 302 redirected to the same URL plus a query string appended to it. For example: www.example.com/hello.html is 302 redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc The www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc page also has a link canonical tag to www.example.com/hello.html In the above example, can www.example.com/hello.html every be Indexed, by google as I assume the googlebot will always be redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc and will never see www.example.com/hello.html ? Thanks in advance for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommRulz0 -
Domain forward or 301 redirect
My company recently acquired another company including their web presence. We are soon ending their website and will be either 301 redirecting their domain to our domain or pointing their domain to our nameservers. Their domain authority is only 25 while our domain authority is 32. Their domain was created in 1998 while ours was created in 1999. So to keep our domain authority up or enhance it, should we do a 301 redirect or a domain forward. And that is if there is any difference? Thanks Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | topsailislander0 -
Redirecting non www site
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. I 100% agree with the redirecting of the non www domain name. After all we see so many times, especially in MOZ how the two different domains contain different links, different DA and of course different PA. So I have posed the question to our IT company, "How would we go about redirecting our non www domain to the www version?", "Where would we do that?", " we cant do the redirect on our webserver because the website is listed as an IP address, not a domain name, so would we do the redirect somewhere at GoDaddy?" who is currently maintain our DNS record So here is the response from IT: " I would setup a CNAME record in DNS (GoDaddy), such that no matter if you go to the bare domain, or the www, you end up in the same place. As for SEO, having a 301 redirect for your bare domain isn't necessary, because both the bare domain and the www are the same domain. 301 is a redirect for "permanently moved" and is common when you change domain names. Using the bare domain or the www are NOT DIFFERENT DOMAINS, so the 301 would not be accurate, and you'd be telling engines you've moved, when you haven't - which may negatively impact your rank. It sounds to me that IT is NOT recommending the redirect. How can this be? Or are we talking about two different things? Will the redirect cause the melt down as the IT company suggests? Or do they nut understand SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davenport-Tractor0 -
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 -
Redirect one store to another...
Here's the situation: 2 online stores. Store A is doing really well, traffic, sales, and keyword ranking wise. Store B, not so much. Owner wants to redirect all links from store B to store A and then possibly re-brand store A and give it a different URL. This is a slow time, sales pick up in spring. I would like opinions on this from anyone who has done this or knows about it. Risks, benefits, best practices on going about it, etc... Thank you, Lisa
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Freelancer130 -
What is the Proper Use of 301 redirects for SEO purposes?
I heard and read from different sources that 301 redirects from aged domains with healthy link profiles is great to boost a sites rank as oppose to building a site around the page and linking it to the domain you want to rank. Whats is the best practice for this strategy? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | junkcars0 -
Does 301 Redirect works on social signals?
Hello, I'm considering strategic change in my site's formation.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
301 redirecting some of the pages is not a problem but the question remains - what will happen with all of my social signals? These pages have Likes, plus ones, and tweets. Thanks0