Is page rank lost through a 301 redirect?
-
Hi everyone. I'd really appreciate your help with this one
I've just watched Matt Cutt's video 'what percentage of PageRank is lost through a 301 redirect?' and I am confused. I had taken this to mean that a re-direct would always lose you page rank, but watching it again I am not so sure.
He says that the amount of page rank lost through a 301 redirect is the same as any other link. Does this mean that no page rank at all is lost during site migrations? Or is it the case that first page rank would be lost from the original link and then more page rank would be lost from any subsequent redirects?
-
Yes it does.Thanks Chris!
-
John,
301 redirects are the appropriate way to transition content from one url to another if you are concerned about preserving the algorithmic footprint of the former page because it has the least impact on that footprint. A link and a 301 pass approximately the same link juice but they're used in different ways. The link goes from one existing page to another, while the 301 redirect is implemented at the server level to send all visitors requesting a particular page to a pre-selected alternate page. Make sense?
-
Hi Tom, that makes sense Thanks for your reply and for your excellent response!
-
Hi John
I'll try to lay this out with some very broad examples.
Page A has 1000 PageRank (PR). Page B has 0 PR. Page C has 0 PR.
Page A then links to Page B with a dofollow link.
Page B now has 950 PR. It then links to Page C with a dofollow link.
Page C now has 900 PR.
With every link, a portion of the original PR is lost. Not all of the original PR, link "equity" or "authority" is ever passed 100% with a link. This has always been the case.
Now, what most SEOs previously thought was that, in addition to the PR that is always lost when linking to another site, a 301 redirect would also make some of the PR disappear.
So, with the first example, it would be:
Page A (with a PR score of 1000) is 301 redirected to Page B (with 0 PR)
Page B now has 900 PR - 50 was lost with the link, PLUS another 50 because it was a 301.
What the Matt Cutts video tries to clarify is that the extra 50 points that we thought we lost with a 301 redirect is actually a myth - there's no extra value lost just because it is a 301.
I hope that helps to clarify the point? Remember, my example is a very broad one used to illustrate the point and there are always other factors at play that could effect the amount of PageRank that is passed. But, all things equal, the same amount of PageRank will pass to another site, regardless if the original page links to it or is redirected to the new page. Some PageRank is always lost in the linking process.
Any questions let me know and I'll be happy to clarify!
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
-
Page ranked then disappeared
Recently there have been a a couple of pages form my website that ranked well, in top 5 for a couple of days then they disappear suddenly, they are not at all seen in google search results no matter how narrow I search for them. I checked my search console, there seems to be no issues with the page, but when I check google analytics, I do not get any data from that page since the day it disappeared, and it does not even show up on the 'active pages' section no matter I keep the url open in multiple computers.
Technical SEO | | JoelssonMedia
Has anyone else faced this issue? is there a solution to it?0 -
301 Domain Redirect And Old Domain to a New one including pages
Hi, I need to 301 an old domain to a new one (new website) I need to 301 the domain to a new page not the new domain direct for example www.olddomain.co.uk to www.newdomain.co.uk/pagenew Then I need to also 301 all the other pages on the old domain to the new one for example... www.oldmain.co.uk/oldpage to www.newdomain.co.uk/newpage Issue is I can do one or the other not both, I can get the other pages to redirect but then the main domain wont redirect to the correct new page. Or I can get the old domain to redirect but not the internal pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | David-Sharpe0 -
How can a keyword placed on a page with the Moz page optimization score of 100 be ranked #51+?
Hi, Please help me figure out why this is happening and what goes wrong. This is the example of the poor ranked keyword - 'viking cooktop repair' with page optimization score of 100 (http://www.yourappliancerepairla.com/blog/viking-cooktop-repair/) Yet it's ranking is #51+. I've got many like these: Page Optimization Score for 'kitchenaid oven repair' is 100 (http://www.yourappliancerepairla.com/blog/kitchenaid-oven-repair/) yet its ranking is #51+ And so on. According to Google Search Console, I have 266 of links to my site with variety of root domains. While building backlinks, I paid attention to relevancy and DA.What else do I have to do to get those keywords ranked higher? And why don't they rank well if the pages are 100% optimized, not keywords stuffed and I have quality backlinks? What am I missing out on? Please help!
Technical SEO | | kirupa1 -
301 Redirect
Hello Moz Community, I have a question regarding 301 redirecting a new domain that contains keywords relevant to my website. However, I do NOT want to change my current domain. My main question is, by just redirecting this new domain to my current website, will those keywords in the new domain help with ranking in anyway? Thanks in advance for any help!
Technical SEO | | WyzeOwl0 -
Which way round to 301 redirect?
Hi We have just added a new layered navigation menu to our website. so for example we had Before : www.tidy-books.co.uk/chidlrens-bookcases (this has the seo juice) And Now: http://www.tidy-books.co.uk/childrens-bookcases-book-storage/childrens-bookcases Might be a stupid question but do I redirect the 'now' url to the 'before' url or the the other way round I look forward to hearing your thoughts Thanks
Technical SEO | | tidybooks0 -
Rank a site that was 301'd
We had a customer that had 2 sites. They left us, and 301'd site A to site B. Things didn't go well. Now, a year later they want to use us again. Ideally, I would undo the 301. Has anyone done this? Would I be better off starting with a new domain? If you've done it, how long before it started to rank like you expected/hoped?
Technical SEO | | TimColeman0 -
.EDU via a 301 Redirect?
I recently received a link to my website from an .edu. However, the way they configured it was they pointed the link to one of their internal pages and then made that page 301 to my website. Is there anyway to gain any link juice from that sort of link?
Technical SEO | | gundogs0 -
Pages not ranking - Linkbuilding Question
It has been about 3 months since we made some new pages, with new, unique copy, but alot of pages (even though they have been indexed) are not ranking in the SERPS I tested it by taking a long snippet of the unique copy form the page and searching for it on Google. Also I checked the ranking using http://arizonawebdevelopment.com/google-page-rank
Technical SEO | | Impact-201555
Which may no be accurate, I know, but would give some indication. The interesting thing was that for the unique copy snippets, sometimes a different page of our site, many times the home page, shows up in the SERP'sSo my questions are: Is there some issue / penalty / sandbox deal with the pages that are not indexed? How can we check that? Or has it just not been enough time? Could there be any duplicate copy issue going on? Shouldn't be, as they are all well written, completely unique copy. How can we check that? Flickr image details - Some of the pages display the same set of images from flickr. The details (filenames, alt info, titles) are getting pulled form flickr and can be seen on the source code. Its a pretty large block of words, which is the same on multiple pages, and uses alot of keywords. Could this be an issue considered duplication or keyword stuffing, causing this. If you think so , we will remove it right away. And then when do we do to improve re-indexing? The reason I started this was because we have a few good opportunities right now for links, and I was wondering what pages we should link to and try to build rankings for. I was thinking about pointing one to /cast-bronze-plaques, but the page is not ranking. The home page, obviously is the oldest page, and ranked the best. The cast bronze plaques page is very new. Would linking to pages that are not ranking well be a good idea? Would it help them to get indexed / ranking? Or would it be better to link to the pages that are already indexed / ranking? If you link to a page that does not seem to be indexed, will it help the domains link profile? Will the link juice still flow through the site0