Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Redirect old image that has backlinks

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Redirect old image that has backlinks

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    6
    3616
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • BradChandler
      BradChandler last edited by

      Hi Moz Community!

      I'm doing an audit of a website and did a backlink analysis. In the backlink analysis, there is an image that has 66 backlinks but the image doesn't exist on the website anymore (it was on a website that was created in 2011 - 2 web launches ago).  I don't believe a 301 redirect will work for an image that doesn't exist anymore.

      How would I redirect the image URL (it's WordPress so we have a specific URL that other websites are linking to but get 404 errors) without going to each individual website and requesting they change the URL link?

      Any advice or recommendations would be great. Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • MikeTek
        MikeTek last edited by

        Hi Brad,

        As others have indicated, there's no reason a 301 redirect on a missing image shouldn't work - it's all based on the URL request (not the actual resource served, since the server intercepts the request and forwards it to another URL along with the 301 status code).

        I'd second Yaroslav's recommendation on a good WP plug-in for this (Redirection). You should be able to just use the URL string here to set the redirect where you want to point it.

        I would also suggest double-checking that these are actual links pointing to the image URL, not embeds of that image on these pages (some tools will pick that up as a link). 
        Finally, you may want to create a new page that includes a suitable replacement image if one is available, rather than redirecting to the replacement image file URL (bc this way the reclaimed PageRank will flow through to the rest of your site via your navigation).

        Best,
        Mike

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Corbec888
          Corbec888 last edited by

          Hi there,

          I believe there are a handful of Wordpress plugins which allow you to simply place in a direct URL path so in your instance http://www.site.com/gallery/image/picture.png could be redirected to http://www.site.com.

          The main thing to keep in mind is you use a 301 redirect for this process to ensure all link equity is maintained during the process.

          A good plugin for doing 301 redirects on wordpress is - https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/

          I hope this helps!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
          • TucsonAZWebDesign
            TucsonAZWebDesign last edited by

            As jcnotfound2083 states the ideal is to use a 301 redirect. I am certain it very much will pass authority. Reason being I've seen many black/grey hats check for broken links on NY Times on older articles and should they see a DoFollow to a expired non owned domain, purchase the lease and 301 redirect it to a domain they want authority passed.

            When it comes to the NYTimes scenario, I'd Personally make a website and put relevant content on it, giving me the most longevity as to not appear blatantly obvious that I'm manipulating the situation for ranking. In the case of this image, you don't want to just swap it with another one especially if it's annoying and had say for instance the date meshed in with the url extension, which is to much to deal with. This will redirect it to your homepage

            Redirect 301 /foldersAnd/ToOldImage/image.jpg /

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • jcnotfound2083
              jcnotfound2083 last edited by

              Hi,

              A 301 redirect is the most reasonable alternative. I would place an instruction within the .htaccess file like this:

              Redirect 301 /[old_folder] new_url_image

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Seenlyst
                Seenlyst last edited by

                Hello Brad,

                I'm assuming the image used to be on the same domain you're now on, and it leads them to your website 404 page, in that case, I would upload another relevant image with the same filename to my site and do a 301 redirect.

                If those backlinks point to an image from the other site which is different from your current site, you might want to make sure these backlinks are quality and relevant to your content before making a domain level 301 redirect.

                Hope this answered your question.

                Regards,
                Joseph Yap

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • kirin44355

                  Mass URL changes and redirecting those old URLS to the new. What is SEO Risk and best practices?

                  Hello good people of the MOZ community, I am looking to do a mass edit of URLS on content pages within our sites. The way these were initially setup was to be unique by having the date in the URL which was a few years ago and can make evergreen content now seem dated. The new URLS would follow a better folder path style naming convention and would be way better URLS overall. Some examples of the **old **URLS would be https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Skates/buying-guide-9-17-2012,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Kids-Inline-Skates/buying-guide-11-13-2012,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Hockey-Skates/buying-guide-9-3-2012,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Aggressive-Skates/buying-guide-7-19-2012,default,pg.html The new URLS would look like this which would be a great improvement https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Skates,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Kids-Inline-Skates,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Hockey-Skates,default,pg.html
                  https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Aggressive-Skates,default,pg.html My worry is that we do rank fairly well organically for some of the content and don't want to anger the google machine. The way I would be doing the process would be to edit the URLS to the new layout, then do the redirect for them and push live. Is there a great SEO risk to doing this? 
                  Is there a way to do a mass "Fetch as googlebot" to reindex these if I do say 50 a day? I only see the ability to do 1 URL at a time in the webmaster backend. 
                  Is there anything else I am missing? I believe this change would overall be good in the long run but do not want to take a huge hit initially by doing something incorrectly. This would be done on 5- to a couple hundred links across various sites I manage. Thanks in advance,
                  Chris Gorski

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kirin44355
                  0
                • Agguk

                  Backlinks from old domain

                  Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
                  We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agguk
                  0
                • bondhoward

                  Do google counts YouTube backlinks?

                  Does google count YouTube links in the video description

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward
                  0
                • ocelot

                  Php 301 redirect

                  Hi I am migrating an old wordpress site to a custom PHP site and the URL profiles will be different, so want to retain all link profiles and more importantly if a user visits the old urls via search then they are seamlessly transferred to the new equivalent page For example www.domain.com/about-us is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/aboutus.php www.domain.com/furniture is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/furniture-collections.php etc What is the best way of achieving this apart from .htaccess as not 100% confident of doing this.  Could it be done via PHP or using meta tags?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot
                  0
                • steviephil

                  Best way to noindex an image?

                  Hi all, A client wanted a few pages noindexed, which was no problem using the meta robots noindex tag. However they now want associated images removed, some of which still appear on pages that they still want indexed. I added the images to their robots.txt file a few weeks ago (probably over a month ago actually) but they're all still showing when you do an image search. What's the best way to noindex them for good, and how do I go about implementing it? Many thanks, Steve

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steviephil
                  0
                • BeytzNet

                  How to 301 redirect old wordpress category?

                  Hi All, In order to avoid duplication errors we've decided to redirect old categories (merge some categories).
                  In the past we have been very generous with the number of categories we assigned each post. One category needs to be redirected back to blog home (removed completely) while a couple others should be merged. Afterwords we will re-categorize some of the old posts. What is the proper way to do so?
                  We are not technical, Is there a plugin that can assist? Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
                  0
                • android_lyon

                  303 redirect

                  Hi, 303 redirect is a good thing or not ? I have a homepage in 2 languages FR and EN > mywebsite.com/fr/ and mywebsite.com/en/. A 303 redirect is on mywebsite.com to mywebsite.com/fr/. Thanks D.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | android_lyon
                  0
                • bloomnation

                  DNS or 301 Website Redirect

                  We are running a marketplace site, so we have thousands of vendors selling their products on our site. Each vendor has a Profile page and we are soon to launch a premium store-front that is white label. Many of these vendors will want to point a custom url to their premium store-front (which is a sub domain of the marketplace) and we are trying to get an understanding of how we should instruct them to point their url in a way that will give the main marketplace site the seo juice. We also want to understand what will show up in the address bar.  Will it be their url or our sub domain? Will any of the marketplace seo juice boost their url local listing status?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bloomnation
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.