How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?

[CitimarineMoz]

I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new.

In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL.

What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side?

Thanks

[augustinebdi]

Many thanks, @tom-capper for your clarification.

[Tom.Capper]

@augustinebdi

Hi Augistine

No, there's no fixed number. And sometimes redirects are the right answer to a problem - such as old or unused URLs.

As a general rule, avoid having links on your site that point to a redirecting URL. Instead, point them to the destination of that redirect. This is what tools (like Moz) are trying to help you with when they point out the number of redirects - it's just a list so you can identify links to those URLs, and update the links.

[augustinebdi]

Hey guys,

I have a question: Is there any good(bad) number of redirects. My website has 101 URL redirects and was wondering if this will be detrimental to the website rank.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Thanks
Augustine

[jigersohaib]

My problem is solved thanks to all. I am going to share this thread https://moz.com/community/q/topic/71433/how-effective-are-301-redirects-gosloto-in-passing-page-rank with my friends and brother who faced the same problem.

Thanks again

[tahlilnawaz76]

Hey thanks for the super helpful reply. I'm not sure how I missed that thread. I haven't quite mastered the search function on here. I think I'll pass with him this time around. If i want any further guideline we will contact you here https://moz.com/community/q/topic/71433/how-effective-are-301-results-redirects-in-passing-page-rank/

[Tom.Capper]

@citimarinemoz

Maintaining the original URL is definitely the low risk approach. On the other hand, if you're ever going to do this, it's better to do it sooner - that way you're only risking/diluting the links you've acquired so far, not any future equity.

301 redirects do pass the majority of PageRank onwards, but if the new URL is very dissimilar or has existing issues, or if the redirection doesn't go smoothly / isn't detected by Google, you can have problems.

Tom

[seoman10]

@citimarinemoz Properly the bigger question is what do you mean by re purposing the blog.
If you are keeping the context of the blog the same, providing it is the same domain, the content is the same or better and you do your 301s properly it should be fine.
On the other hand if you are changing what your blog focuses on and you are rewriting the content of the pages you could well run into a problem.
My advice would be

1. Keep the same domain
2. Keep the old blog posts if possible, maybe update them if necessary
3. Create new blog posts with your new content on the same domain
4. Utilise internal linking for any relevant topics and pages