301 or 302 Redirects with locale URLs?
-
Hi Mozers,
I have a bit of a tricky question I need some help answering. My agency are building a brand new website for a client of ours which means changing the domain name (yay...). So! I have my 301's all ready to go for the UK locale, however, the issue I have is that the site will also eventually have French, German and Spanish locales - but these won't be ready to go until later this year. We will be launching in just English for September. The current site already has the French and German locales on it as well.
Just to make sure I'm being clear, the site will be www.example.com for launch, but by lets say November, we will also have a www.example.com/fr/ and www.example.com/de/ site launched too.
So what do I do with the locale URLs? As I said above, the exisitng site already has the French and German locales on it, so I don't particularly want to redirect the /fr/ and /de/ URLs to the English homepage, as I will want to redirect them to the new URLs in November, and redirecting more than once is bad for SEO right?
Any ideas? Would 302s maybe be the best suggestion?
Thanks!
Virginia
-
Thanks Greg. Yeah, I didn't really want to go down the 302 route, it makes everything so much more time sensitive!
-
Thanks Rob!
I'm trying to encourage my client as much as possible to start work on the translations of the sites ASAP so that we don't end up going down the Google Translate route. I've advised against this already.
Your advise has been really helpful!
Thanks
-
Hi Virginia,
In all honesty, it's probably not going to matter very much which kind of redirect you are using. If I understand you correctly, your current redirect chain will look like:
www.example.com --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/fr --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/de --> www.example2.comThe reason redirects won't matter is that in November your second French, Dutch, etc. sites are going live. The redirects will have to be changed in November to look more like this:
www.example.com --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/fr --> www.example2.com/fr
www.example.com/de --> www.example2.com/deGiven that there is a maximum of 6-8 weeks when these redirects will be active, Google will barely have time to index them before you are changing your redirect chain all over again. In my books, that makes these redirects somewhat redundant - either way you are going to have some SEO changes occurring during that time which will probably be in a downward direction. That being said, you will want to finish up with 301 redirects since that will be the permanent fix.
However, once the new redirects are placed and indexed, you should see things return to normal and even improve if the new sites are featuring good UX. Keep in mind that any redirect is going to hurt your link profile a little bit, so you can expect to lose some rankings once your redirects are indexed.
Bottom line:
- Focus on ensuring the new sites are well put-together with good content
- Make sure proper translations are taken care of (this is a HUGE problem with multi-lingual sites)
- Try to avoid Google Translate plugin for translation services (doesn't sound like this is what you're doing)
- More importance should be placed on the UX of the site and the link profile impacts of 301 redirects
- Make sure 301 redirects are what you finish up with after the new sites go live in November
Feel free to reach out if I can be of more assistance.
Cheers,
Rob
-
Also, I understand your confusion in 301 vs 302. I mean essentially, your redirect is temporary. But 302 redirects are meant more so for short time periods, probably with a month being the max amount of time you would want to do this. You'll want to use a 301 to maintain linking power. There's no harm in doing so and then replacing it later.
-
You would remove the old 301 redirect from www.example.com/fr/ to www.example.com and add a new one from www.example.com/fr/ to www.example2.com/fr/ , then force a recrawl on your site.
-
But what will happen when I have to 301 again? Currently, I will have to redirect from www.example.com/fr/ to my new English only site which is www.example.com. But then in 3 months time, I will have a www.example2.com/fr/. So I want my old www.example.com/fr/ to redirect to my new www.example2.com/fr/ website. So how would that work?
-
Personally I think a 301 redirect would be the best.
-
I reckon you must use 301 as it seems like you're moving your sites permanently so there is no point to have 302 at all.
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
-
Local Search ( Automotive Vertical ) One Targeted Landing Page Listed Twice In Navigation
NOT talking about the same page being linked to twice Talking about One (1) (landing) page Being Listed Twice In Navigation. Looking for a definitive answer that there is NO negative SEO ( or negative anything ) to put the same page in your site's Navigation Bar ... twice (or more than once) Can't find anything written that there is anything to consider or be concerned with, but, thought I'd ask. I'm a newERbie, but not a NEWbie...have 2.5 years experience in local, on-page SEO...but only know what I know Maybe I should know this, but, I don't. E.g. Home New Cars Used Cars Special Offers Service Finance About Us PickUps PickUps This is JUST an example, but, we have multiple occurences, let's say, Trade-In-Value ... in two places. One page, two locations in navigation. I have SEEN it being done, 'all the time', but now, when I went to do it with a little bit of a different rationale, I was questioned about ' ... is this okay for SEO ' I THINK yes But, I want to KNOW yes ... it is ok.
Local Website Optimization | | GaryT_SEO0 -
Page Title Local SEO - 2 places
Hello guys, I am from azores are 9 islands in portugal. I live in São Jorge is one island. My question is. If one person seach by Azores Canyoning or São Jorge Canyoning. Because Azores is one region and São Jorge is one island inside Azores. And i want have this two exact keywords in title page. Canyoning is a service. Azores Canyoning - São Jorge Canyoning | Brand Name what is best way to write this title? Or is not good?
Local Website Optimization | | Flaske0 -
Moving from html to wordpress site - 301's
Hello, I recently took control of my website from a web designer. I have been reading as much as I can regards SEO etc to make long term improvements to my site. The site was a basic 4 page website for a local cleaning company. Consisting of a homepage, services page, testimonial and contact page. The site performed reasonably given it's lack of detail or SEO but probably only because the level of competition isn't great. I am in the process of rebuilding the site in wordpress and with SEO in mind I intend to have more than 1 page regards services. I have 301'd my services.html page to my number 1 keyword term to gain any little link juice that is available. Now to my questions... Should I be doing this with the other pages? Is it worth 301'ing my contact us page? Is there anything to be gained by doing so? Again should I 301 the index.html to the new homepage? Been reading about this and the issues relating to loops etc but cannot find a definite answer regards the need? Last scenario - lets say my testimonials.html page has some link juice would it be beneficial to 301 that to 1 of my new service pages to give that a kick start as opposed to making a less important page like another testimonials page more powerful? Hope this makes sense, I am a beginner just thinking out loud. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | sfrediktru80 -
SEO geolocation vs subdirectories vs local search vs traffic
My dear community and friends of MOZ, today I have a very interesting question to you all. Although I´ve got my opinion, and Im sure many of you will think the same way, I want to share the following dilemma with you. I have just joined a company as Online Marketing Manager and I have to quickly take a decision about site structure. The site of the company has just applied a big structure change. They used to have their information divided by country (each country one subdirectory) www.site.com/ar/news www.site.com/us/news . They have just changed this and erased the country subdirectory and started using geolocation. So if we go to www.site.com/news although the content is going to be the same for each country ( it’s a Latinamerican site, all the countries speak the same language except Brazil) the navigation links are going to drive you to different pages according to the country where you are located. They believe that having less subdirectories PA or PR is going to be higher for each page due to less linkjuice leaking. My guess is that if you want to have an important organic traffic presence you should A) get a TLD for the country you want to targe… if not B)have a subdirectory or subdomain for each country in your site. I don’t know what local sign could be a page giving to google if the URL and html doesn’t change between countries- We can not use schemas or rich formats neither…So, again, I would suggest to go back to the previous structure. On the other hand…I ve been taking a look to sensacine.com and although their site is pointing only to Spain | |
Local Website Optimization | | facupp1
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | | They have very good rankings for big volume keywords in all latinamerica, so I just want to quantify this change, since I will be sending to the designers and developers a lot of work1 -
Multiple Locations with Branded Name/Keyword in URL
I have a client, let's call him "Bob". Bob has 2 stores where he sells "Widgets", Bob's Widgets and Bob's Widgets South. These locations are roughly 40 miles from each other and serve two different marketplaces. Each location has their own website "www.bobswidgets.com & www.bobswidgetssouth.com". Each location is run by different individuals. The Store Manager at Bob's Widgets is complaining that when you type "Bob's Widgets" into the search engines "Bob's Widgets South" website is indexing in the 2nd and/or 3rd position. The Store Manager at Bob's Widgets feels that Bob's Widgets South could be stealing business from him because of the way Google is indexing the sites. I have explained to him that the keyword the user is typing in is in both names of the locations and in each URL and this is prompting the search engine to index both sites. Am I missing something else???
Local Website Optimization | | mittcom0 -
Should I use keywords in all my URLs?
I couldn't find anything online that really covers my exact question. If I wanted to change my home page URL, (currently along the lines of "http://example.com/home") would it be a good idea to change it to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-repair"? Then on the "services page" I might change the URL to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-services". Pages like the contact page would probably remain simply "example.com/contact" Theoretically by putting my main keywords right there in the URL, I would imagine that I could get moved up in the SERPs. Am I wrong? So if this is a bad idea, please let me know why. If this is a good idea, do you have any articles or references that cover this, or even personal experience?
Local Website Optimization | | Marshall_Motors0 -
Changing Menu Url and Menu Anchor Text
Hi All, I have a well established site. I would like to make a couple of adjustments to my main menu. 1] Replace a menu url with an established page url.
Local Website Optimization | | Mark_Ch
2] Rename a menu anchor text to something more meaningful. What impact would changing the menu have? Thanks Mark0 -
City in title tag hurt Local Search?
Big city A is the target optimization for services. Suburb city B is the location of the business. Will having big city A in the title tag of pages confuse the NAP consistency and local SEO for the site?
Local Website Optimization | | LyntonWeb0