301 Redirect Best Practices
-
Hi SEOs,
Question about ranking/redirects. If I have a particular page that is already ranking for a couple KWs in top SERPs, but know there are higher volume KWs I can optimize for should I just leave it as is or change the URL key and redirect for the time being until Google re-indexes.
Example:
current URL: www.example.com/action/best-movies
new URL: www.example.com/action/best-action-movies
(the current would be ranking for "best action moves" whereas the new would include the actual "best action movies" KW)Let me know if I can clarify, thank you!
-
Hey Paul, that makes complete sense. Thanks for your help.
-
It would seem I put the wrong link - the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw however I would still stick to my point and get the URL you are happy to rank for and then sort out the content on the page. While the URL may only be a small factor in google algorithm.
But if your unhappy with your url structure now, no matter what happens Ive found that in a year or so you will wish you had changed the url.
So I always recommend changing the url to something you are happy with, then work on content, link building and improving the page, but I would still argue that the little bit of page rank lost (and without knowing the page its going to be hard to know exactly the implications), its worth it to get the URL structure you are happy with and then work on the content.
What I wouldn't recommend is 301 a page, to another page which then 301 to another page - this is seen as bad and you will lose a lot of link power, google may follow 2 or 3 stacked 301s but after that they wont http://www.jamesburton.net/chained-301-redirects-google-search-impact/. So doing a 301 wont hurt your ranking if you have decent content and links built in, just don't start stacking 301s
-
Did you even read the article you quote, Andrew? It clearly states that 301s definitely DO dissipate Pagerank. That's even the title of the article! And Matt Cutts' direct quote is
The amount of PageRank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of PageRank that dissipates through a link. [emphasis mine]
Clearly what he is saying is that the redirect doesn't reduce the flow more than a regular link, but does reduce it by the same amount. (which many estimate to be as high as 15%). This whole discussion was in context of not using convoluted linking methods in order to avoid using a 301 redirect which was at first thought to reduce PR flow more than a regular link did.
So the bottom line message is "use a 301 when that is the best solution". But you still shouldn't use them unnecessarily as they do "waste" flow of PageRank.
Paul
Paul
-
Having the target keyword in the URL is only one of many ranking signals, Reed, and in my experience a fairly small one. In addition, contrary to Ahalliday's claim, 301 redirects DO in fact dilute "link juice" by the same amount as regular links would (some estimate by up to 15%).
So in my opinion, you'd be on a fool's errand. Whatever you gained from having the keyword in the URL would be lost by passing through a juice-reducing redirect. I'd say you could find much more productive ways to spend your optimisation time. That's not to say you can't still tune up your other on-page factors for the "better" terms, especially If you're already ranking for the higher-volume term with that page. Even better - invest a little time getting some off-page boosts, like earning a few good links. Maybe add some additional quality content like images, video, comparison charts, etc. That'll have far greater effect.
Does that make sense?
Paul
-
According to Matt Cutts you don't lose that much page rank for 301's.
http://www.seroundtable.com/redirects-links-pagerank-16419.html
I would probably recommend changing your url for the higher volume keywords and putting 301s in place and in theory you shouldn't lose ranking for your current rankings
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
-
Best practice around removing large section of the website
We are looking at removing a large section of our website that is getting low/no traffic. My current thought of removing this would be to delete the pages and add 301 redirects to a similar page within the site that is not being deleted. This will be removing 400+ pages, does it this make sense? Or should we point them to the homepage? Finally should we do this in one batch or should we slowly remove the pages over the course of a couple weeks. Thanks - appreciate the help in understanding the best practice in terms of SEO.
Technical SEO | | webactive0 -
How long after google crawl do you need 301 redirects
We have just added 301's when we moved our site. Google has done a crawl & spat back a few errors. How long do I need to keep those 301's in place? I may need to change some. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Paul_MC0 -
Best Practices to Choosing a Domain Name
I have the following list of domains to choose from: http://www.xxx.net/ http://www.xxx.uk/ www.es-xxx.com Which of these domain structures seem the best, or are all 3 questionable?
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Another 301 redirect question - penalty?
Good Morning, We have 2 sites have images and minimal text on them. The images have links that point to a 3<sup>rd</sup> site that facilitates eCommerce. Question: If we 301 redirect these sites permanently to yet a 4<sup>th</sup> site… 1) Does it violate any G’s guidelines 2) Should we delete the links embedded in the images (as they point to the 3<sup>rd</sup> site) Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
.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 -
How to 301 redirect via OpenCms/7.5.4
Hi everyone, My programmer told me it is impossible to do a permanent redirect from www.website.com/index.html to www.website.com due to cms technical limitation which I do not want to believe hence is it possible / is there documentation available instructing on how to do a proper 301 permanent redirect on OpenCMS 7.5.4? Thanks a lot! Steve
Technical SEO | | sjcbayona-412180 -
301 redirect dropped page rank
Hi, We have a www domain that I have changed to a non www domain. The www domain had been in place for some time and had a good page rank, PR4. After this change the page rank dropped significantly (PR0, and now recently back to PR2) despite it being a 301 redirect which I thought "should" carry over the page rank. Yes, I am aware I should have just left it be. Hind sight 20/20 .. ya ya ya 🙂 My questions Is the 301 the correct method for this? Why did the page rank drop despite the 301? Should we go back to the www domain at this point? Thanks Kris
Technical SEO | | adriot0 -
301 redirecting some pages directly, and the rest to a single page
I've read through the Redirect guide here already but can't get this down in my .htaccess I want to redirect some pages specifically (/contactinfo.html to the new /contact.php) And I want all other pages (not all have equivalent pages on the new site) to redirect to my new (index.php) homepage. How can I set it up so that some specific pages redirect directly, and all others go to one page? I already have the specific oldpage.html -> newpage.php redirects in place, just need to figure out the broad one for everything else.
Technical SEO | | RyanWhitney150