Danger in using utm_source and utm_medium to track tens of thousands of cross domain redirects
-
We just merged with another company and are redirecting their domains (competitive/similar content) to our own.
We'll have several domains, redirecting (301) several hundred thousand URL's to our domain (not all the same page, very unique mappings). Will adding utm_source, et al parameters to the URL's have a negative impact on how google transfers value to the pages based on the redirect authority passed?
Any points of view? We have a self referencing canonical, but given that we have 90 million pages on the current domain (and climbing), seems like cleanest approach would be to not use redirects.
Thanks,
Jeff
-
Absolutely Jeffrey. It is just an identifier so should be no issues with this at all. I have a large client who have done a very similar thing and 18 months on, SERP positions are still in the top 2
-Andy
-
Yeah it's an odd market
Cool - just wanted to solicit an opinion or two. So to be clear, redirecting to somesite.com/search/cows
is the same to google as redirecting to
-
You are fortunate to be in one of the few market areas where you can actually do this with with a good degree of success and not have to handle it all manually Jeffrey!
So that aside, I can't see issues with what you are planning, but as above, do remember that some link juice loss will happen with any 301.
-Andy
-
Right on Andy,
So you're calling into question volume of redirects? Well, we are basically redirecting a unique item to another unique item. In this case we're dealing with stock photography and media, so there are TONS of items and category pages that have relevant identical pages between domains.
The redirect mapping has been set-up very carefully using both manual and automated checks.
-
I can't help but feel unsure about redirecting so many pages Jeffrey, utm_source or not. With so many URL's, has the mapping process been handled manually, or at least have an intelligent algorithm to handle this?
Google are very clear on their thoughts of 301's, as I am sure you are aware, so get this wrong too many times and you will see a drop in the SERPs. Also, it is worth remembering that you lose some link power with a 301 anyway.
But to answer your question, I have never come across any time where tracking code has caused SEO issues.
-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
-
Redirecting Ecommerce Site
Hi I'm working on a big site migration I'm setting up redirects for all the old categories to point to the new ones. I'm doing this based on relevancy, the categories don't match up exactly but I've tried to redirect to the most relevant alternative. Would this be the right approach?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
How to build Domain Authority?
My site: https://www.fishingspots.com.au/ has started to drop Domain Authority in the past weeks, however less quality sites like http://silverstories.com.au/ are rising... I am not sure why? Is there someway I can understand why my site would suddenly start dropping authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thinkLukeSEO0 -
Use of Rel=Canonical
I have been pondering whether I am using this tag correctly or not. We have a custom solution which lays out products in the typical eCommerce style with plenty of tick box filters to further narrow down the view. When I last researched this it seemed like a good idea to implement rel=canonical to point all sub section pages at a 'view-all' page which returns all the products unfiltered for that given section. Normally pages are restricted down to 9 results per page with interface options to increase that. This combined with all the filters we offer creates many millions of possible page permutations and hence the need for the Canonical tag. I am concerned because our view-all pages get large, returning all of that section's product into one place.If I pointed the view-all page at say the first page of x results would that defeat the object of the view-all suggestion that Google made a few years back as it would require further crawling to get at all the data? Alternatively as these pages are just product listings, would NoIndex be a better route to go given that its unlikely they will get much love in Google anyway?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | motiv80 -
Using Webmaster Tools to Redirect Domain to Specific Page on Another Domain
Hey Everyone, we redirected an entire domain to a specific URL on another domain (not the homepage). We used a 301 Redirect, but I'm also wondering if I should use the Google Webmaster Tools "Change of Address" section to redirect. There is no option to redirect the old domain to the specific URL on the new domain within the "Change of Address" section. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Redirect help
I work for a company that has a domain that is something like www.neat-stuff.com but most people just use www.neatstuff.com without the dash. The redirect for the homepage works fine. We recently launched a new site and if you use www.neat-stuff.com/category it redirects from the old site to the new site just fine. However if you use www.neatstuff.com/category it does not properly redirect to www.neat-stuff.com/category. How do I fix that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
301 redirects.
Hi everyone, I am having some issues with an a few dynamic URLs that are not redirecting; Example: http://www.example.com/shop-online?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=69164&category_id=303 I first tried to carry out a standard 301 which looked like this; Redirect 301 /longurlwith&category_id=303 http://www.example.com/new-url Which didn't work. After a little bit of research I added the following into the htaccess file; RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC]RewriteRule ^/shop-online$(.*)$ http://www.example.com/shop-online$ [NE,L,R=301] Which caused the website to error 500 (Not cool). So now I am stumped. Any help would be really appreciated as I'm sure it's an easy fix but I can't quite my finger on it. Thanks in advance :).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AduroLabs0 -
Domain buying
hello Mozzers - a bit shout out to all of you. Question - I have a 3 keyword, and the domain is available - the only thing is it has a hyphen example: black-book-covers.com Is it worth getting this domain? There is a fair amount of traffic to this domain. Thank you all - we love you, Best, Vijay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vijayvasu0 -
Sub domain versus separate domains, which is better for Search engine purposes?
We are pitching to a hotel client to build two new websites, a summer website and a winter website, two completely different looking websites. The client wants to automatically switch their domain name to point to one or the other, depending on the time of year. The customer does not want to use a landing page where you would choose which site to visit; they want the domain name to go directly to the relevant website. Our options: Set up two new domain names and optimise each website based on the holiday season and facilities offered at that time of year. Then change the exisiting domain name to point at the website that is in season. Or Use the existing domain name and setup two sub domains, switching the home page as necessary. We have been chewing this one over for a couple of days, the concern that we have with both options is loss of search visibility. The current website performs well in search engines, it has a home page rank of 4 and sub-pages ranking 2 and 3’s, when we point the domain at the summer site (the client only has a winter website at present) then we will lose all of the search engine benefits already gained. The new summer content will be significantly different to the winter content. We then work hard for six months optimising the summer site and switch back to the Winter site, the content will be wrong. Maybe because it's Friday afternoon we cannot see the light for the smoke of the cars leaving the car park for the weekend, or maybe there is no right or wrong approach. Is there another option? Are we not seeing the wood for the trees? Your comments highly welcome. Martin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bill-Duff0