Googlebot being redirected but not users?
-
Hi,
We seem to have a slightly odd issue.
We noticed that a number of our location category pages were slipping off 1 page, and onto page 2 in our niche. On inspection, we noticed that our Arizona page had started ranking in place of a number of other location pages - Cali, Idaho, NJ etc. Weirdly, the pages they had replaced were no longer indexed, and would remain so, despite being fetched, tweeted etc.
One test was to see when the dropped out pages had been last crawled, or at least cached. When conducting the 'cache:domain.com/category/location' on these pages, we were getting 301 redirected to, you guessed it, the Arizona page. Very odd. However, the dropped out pages were serving 200 OK when run through header checker tools, screaming frog etc.
On the face of it, it would seem Googlebot is getting redirected when it is hitting a number of our key location pages, but users are not. Has anyone experienced anything like this? The theming of the pages are quite different in terms of content, meta etc.
Thanks.
-
Can anyone offer any insight on this? The issue shows no sign of improving, and our organic is tanking.
If this really is an issue on Google's side, and it appears based on our technical set up, how can I force Google to take note and reindex the pages?
Here are some more examples, from across a number of categories..
Category A:
Page that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/KEQ8Yh
Cached version of that page: https://goo.gl/DPzFWMPage that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/5KiQ4s Cached version of that page: https://goo.gl/myRWNg Category B: Page that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/pr3YQs
Cached version of that page: https://goo.gl/8SEYi5 Page that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/LqzDrg
Cached version of that page: https://goo.gl/iwPs45 CategoryPage that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/YBZS7c Cached version of that page:https://goo.gl/n33QzG Page that has dropped out of index: https://goo.gl/Ht4gfO
Cached version of that page: https://goo.gl/u81vbA -
Weirdly, at the time this seemed to correct itself overnight without any fixes our end. However 6 months on and it has happened again... Only this time, all location pages have dropped out of index, but latest cache versions all redirect to the Kansas page.
Have checked log files for these relevant URLs, and all show 200 (and being crawled regularly). When you fetch them in SC the show as complete, and they are all still indexed in Bing.
Very confused!
-
Hi Nicola,
Have you checked your canonical tags to be sure that they are pointing to the correct URL? Sometimes with storefront pages people just copy/paste the same HTML, swapping out the contact information. But maybe they forgot to update the canonical tags?
Keep us updated!
-
Thanks for advice Chris. Have checked, and can't see any issues with htaccess or robots seem. A very strange one indeed!
-
Hi Anthony,
Desktop returns 200, whilst mobile returns a 302 to the mDOT site.
Thanks.
-
Hi Nicola,
Sounds like a very strange one indeed. I can't say I've ever heard of Google giving a redirect when other 3rd party crawlers give you a 200.
My only suggestion to begin the troubleshooting would be to have a look at your htaccess and maybe Robots to see if there are any directives in there addressing Google specifically.
Anthony's suggestion is also a great idea. At least you'll see what Google is picking up on those pages right now rather what they saw last time it was cached.
-
You mention these pages are returning 200 in SEO tools, but would you please share what are these URLs are returning when you Fetch as Googlebot in Google Search Console? Test it in both desktop and mobile versions.
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
-
Redirect 301 still works?
Hi, yesterday a friend said that 301 redirects does not transfer your page rank or domain autorithy anymore. I could'nt find anything in internet saying it, but I decided to ask you guys, since I think you are very reliable. so, 301 redirects wroks for transfer page rank, and i can create better domains and transfer everything, or this strategy is gone forever now?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chablau0 -
Domain Redirect and SSL Cert
Hi, When redirecting an entire site to another domain, do you have to maintain the SSL certificate? The SSL expires 3 days before the planned redirect. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sofla_seo0 -
What happens to 301 redirect if the site taken down?
I understand 301 redirect carries over the page value to the page its being redirected to. However what happens if for example, I do a 301 redirect from example.com to example.co.uk, 2 months later I take down hosting and cancel domain for example.com, would I lose the page value that was being carried over to example.co.uk? Do I need to keep both domains active?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marvellous0 -
301 redirects cross domains
Hi Moz Community. We have a client that has Website A and Website B. Website A is going to be replaced by Website C, a new website and brand. Some products sold on Website A are going to be split out to Website B & C. i.e. Say Website A sells eight products - then four will go to Website B and four to Website C. OUR QUESTION Technically we know we can 301 redirect the Website A products to the relevant Website B & Website C products. 1. Given this convoluted structure, will there be any negative ramifications for SEO? and; 2. Which website would you redirect the homepage to, B or C?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WCR0 -
Order and multiple match when 301 redirect ?
Hi, I'm migrating a single domain to a multiple domain for each language, using apache redirections: Redirect 301 /partners http://www.itris-automation.com/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2MSens
Redirect 301 /partner-si http://www.itris-automation.com/system-integrators-partners
Redirect 301 /partner-institute http://www.itris-automation.com/institutional-partners
Redirect 301 /fr/ http://www.itris-automation.fr/
Redirect 301 /fr/support http://www.itris-automation.fr/support
Redirect 301 /privacy?lang=fr http://www.itris-automation.fr/politique-de-confidentialite Redirect 301 /de/plc-converter http://www.itris-automation.de/plc-converter
Redirect 301 /de/services http://www.itris-automation.de/
Redirect 301 /de/plc-quality http://www.itris-automation.de/sps-qualitat .... However it doesn't work properly: For example automationsquare.com/privacy?lang=fr redirect to http://www.itris-automation.com/privacy instead of http://www.itris-automation.fr/politique-de-confidentialite Does the order of the redirect has an influence? Am I missing something? I've seen that the command [L] can be useful to avoid mismatch? Thanks, Best, Benoit.0 -
Geoip redirection, 301 or 302?
Hello all Let me first try to explain what our company does and what it is trying to achieve. Our company has an online store, sells products for 3 different countries, and two languages for each country. Currently we have one site, which is open to all countries, what we are trying to achieve is make 3 different stores for these 3 different countries, so we can have a better control over the prices in each country. We are going to use Geoip to redirect the user to the local store in his country. The suggested new structure is to add sub-folders as following: www.example.com/ca-en
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajarad
www.example.com/ca-fr
www.example.com/us-en
... If a visitor is located outside these 3 countries, then she'll be redirected to the root directory www.example.com/en We can't offer to expand our SEO team to optimize new pages for the local market, it's not the priority for now, the main objective now is to be able to control the prices for different market. so to eliminate the duplicate issue, we'll use canonical tags. Now knowing our objective from the new URL structure, I have two questions: 1- which redirect should we use? 301, 302?
If we choose 301, then which version of the site will get the link juice? (i.e, /ca-en or /us-en?)
if we choose 302, then will the link juice remain in the original links? is it healthy to use 302 for long term redirections? 2- Knowing that Google bots comes from US-IP, does that mean that the other versions of the site won't be crawled (i.e, www.example.com/ca-fr), this is especially important for us as we are using AdWords, and unindexed pages will effect our quality score badly. I'd like to know if you have other account structure in your mind that would be better than this proposed structure. Your help is highly highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.0 -
Is this a Correct Time to Use 302 Redirects?
Hi Mozzers! We are going through a rebranding process, and as of this morning we have 3 domains, all with identical content. For example (not real domain names): www.fantastic.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
www.fantasticfireworks.com
www.fireworks.com We are using 3 domains to ease the rebranding transition. We currently only want people to visit 'www.fantastic.com,' and if they visit the other 2 domains we want them redirected. Since we will be using these other domains eventually, should we use 302 redirects instead of 301s? The other domains are new and do not have any domain authority or sites linking in, so we do not need to worry about link juice. Does it really matter what type of redirect we use? Thanks!0 -
301 redirect for ip address in SERPs
Hi, I've recently had the misfortune of my site's ip address being crawled and indexed by Google, which is causing some duplicate content issues. Due to the nature of the site we're not able to implement a canonical tag to fix this at present. Would a 301 redirect do the trick, and if so, could someone point me to what I'd need to add to our .htaccess file? Many thanks Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisHillfd0