Bulk redirect or only a few pages at a time
-
Dear all,
I would very much like to have your advise about whether or not to implement bulk 301 redirects.
We have 3 retail websites with the same technical architecture, namely:
These three websites are all bilingual, namely:
- Netherlands-example.nl/nl
- Netherlands-example.nl/fr
- Belgium-example.be/nl
- Belgium-example.be/fr
- France-example.fr/nl
- France-example.fr/fr
We’re going to do a CMS update and therefore we have to change a bulk of 301 redirects:
Part 1: For France (France-example.fr) URL’s in the Dutch language (France-example.fr/nl) will be redirected to Belgium (Belgium-example.be/nl). It’s a matter of about 8.000 redirects.
Part 2: For the Netherlands (Netherlands-example.nl) URL’s in the French language (Netherlands-example.nl/fr ) will be redirected to Belgium (Belgium-example.be/fr). It’s also a matter of about 8.000 redirects.
Question:
What will be the best way to implement these redirects? Fully implement part 1 first (8.000 redirects) and then a couple of weeks/months later a full implement of part 2?Or will it be better to implement small batches like 200-500 per 2 weeks?
I’d like to hear your opinion. Thanks in advance.
Kind regards,
Gerwin
-
Hello Patrick,
Thank you for the great resource! This part was what we where looking for;
Move all URLs at once**.** We advise you move all URLs on your site simultaneously instead of moving one section at a time. This helps users interact with the site better in its new form, and helps our algorithms detect the site move and update our index faster.
Source:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033080?hl=en&ref_topic=6033084It supports Andy's answer with some background from Google so great work and thanks again!
Regards,
Gerwin
-
Hi there
I would do this in bulk, especially if you plan on moving everything over to begin with.
I highly suggest reading this migration resource, as well as Google's Moving a site documentation, as it will help you make this less painless. But make sure you read through everything - don't read a portion and think you got it.
As long as you are prepared, doing this in bulk shouldn't be too bad at all - just make sure you are coordinated with your web development team.
Also, make sure your international SEO is on point and that your sites are properly targeted (for both Google and Bing), and that you are taking advantage of language tags (again, for both Google and Bing).
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Hi Gerwin,
No problem with doing this in bulk. If you can tell Google about a big change all in one go, then this is better than still having incorrect pages lingering around while you do them in small batches.
As long as the pages match well (which it sounds like they do), then there is no problem with doing this on a large scale.
-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
-
Images on their own page?
Hi Mozers, We have images on their own separate pages that are then pulled onto content pages. Should the standalone pages be indexable? On the one hand, it seems good to have an image on it's own page, with it's own title. On the other hand, it may be better SEO for crawler to find the image on a content page dedicated to that topic. Unsure. Would appreciate any guidance! Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater1 -
Redirect Issue in .htaccess
Hi, I'm stumped on this, so I'm hoping someone can help. I have a Wordpress site that I migrated to https about a year ago. Shortly after I added some code to my .htaccess file. My intention was to force https and www to all pages. I did see a moderate decline in rankings around the same time, so I feel the code may be wrong. Also, when I run the domain through Open Site Explorer all of the internal links are showing 301 redirects. The code I'm using is below. Thank you in advance for your help! Redirect HTTP to HTTPS RewriteEngine On ensure www. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnWeb12
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] ensure https RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress USER IP BANNING <limit get="" post="">order allow,deny
deny from 213.238.175.29
deny from 66.249.69.54
allow from all</limit> #Enable gzip compression
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript #Setting heading expires
<ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/x-ico "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 14 days"</ifmodule>0 -
Links / Top Pages by Page Authority ==> pages shouldnt be there
I checked my site links and top pages by page authority. What i have found i dont understand, because the first 5-10 pages did not exist!! Should know that we launched a new site and rebuilt the static pages so there are a lot of new pages, and of course we deleted some old ones. I refreshed the sitemap.xml (these pages are not in there) and upload it in GWT. Why those old pages appear under the links menu at top pages by page authority?? How can i get rid off them? thx, Endre
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Neckermann0 -
Sitemaps and dynamic pages
Hi all, I have a gigantic website and they are adding another subdirectory to it. My question is regarding html sitemaps for better optimisation. 1. Should a keyword focussed front end (html) sitemap be made for all the dynamic URLs or 2. Should a category focussed front end (html) sitemap be made for all the dynamic URLs what would be your approach to doing a sitemap with thousands of pages with a structure like Directory > Sub directory > Subdirectory > Files
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Malika10 -
To redirect or not to redirect, that is the question
I work for a software company that is redeveloping the website (same domain.) We have tons of content in the form of articles and documents for support, how to use the product better, case studies, and blog posts. I've downloaded a landing page report and many of these have low impressions and little or no clicks (some ranked high other very low.) Should I redirect all this content to the new site where some of it won't exist or forget about it because of the lack of juice? Is there a rule-of-thumb threshold for redirecting for content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody15969167212220 -
I've seen and heard alot about city-specific landing pages for businesses with multiple locations, but what about city-specific landing pages for cities nearby that you aren't actually located in? Is it ok to create landing pages for nearby cities?
I asked here https://www.google.com/moderator/#7/e=adbf4 but figured out ask the Moz Community also! Is it actually best practice to create landing pages for nearby cities if you don't have an actual address there? Even if your target customers are there? For example, If I am in Miami, but have a lot of customers who come from nearby cities like Fort Lauderdale is it okay to create those LP's? I've heard this described as best practice, but I'm beginning to question whether Google sees it that way.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley2 -
Redirecting 404 pages
Hello,We have a wordpress site that has some "hidden" pages with weird URL's. Due to the way the site was built (not by us) if we setup our standard practice for 404 pages some site functionality will be lost.Standard Practice for 404's www.domain.com/fafsaf shows 404 error pageProposed solution:- www.domain.com/safaf >forwards to> www.domain.com/404 - shows 404 error page. Will this stop the search engines indexing the pages? - we have also amended the robots.txt to try and stop some pages being indexed but we still keep finding the odd little "hidden" page.The aim is to try and get all the search engines just to index the few simple pages on the sitemap instead of finding all these extra pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Are there certain times of the day that it is better to update content or blogs? How do I find out what time is best for a particular site?
Trying to figure out how to best optimize timing of new content... including blogs and other on page content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AaronSchinke0