Direct link vs 302 redirect
-
So we have recently relaunched a site that we manage. As part of this we have changed the domain. The webdesign agency that built the new site have implemented a direct link from the old domain to the new domain. What is best practice a direct link or a 302 redirect? Thanks
-
Thanks a million for the help guys.
-
Hi Conor,
Chris's answer here is perfect.
You definitely don't just want to link from the old site to the new; you want the old site to be "gone" and to serve a 301 redirect to tell search engines "this resource has permanently moved, and is now over here ----> [new site]".
301 redirects are vital; 302s do not pass authority from one URL to another (there is speculation that a 302 that has been in place for a very long time might be treated as a 301 by Bing, but let's go with the fact that they're next to useless in most cases for passing SEO value).
The 301 redirect should be implemented on a page by page basis, meaning that the home page at www.oldiste.com redirects to www.newsite.com. www.oldsite.com/page1.html redirects to that page's new location, e.g. www.newsite.com/page1.html, and so forth. As Chris says, you do not want www.oldsite.com/page23.html to redirect to the home page of www.newsite.com. The only case in which you'd want to do this is if /page23.html no longer exists on the new site.
How this is done depends on what type of server your site sits on. If you are using an Apache server, the web developers will do this in the site's .htaccess file. If you are using a Microsoft IIS server, this will be done in a control panel. The web development company will clearly know which server you're using and where this will be done.
Some servers and hosts still implement 302 redirects as standard and not 301s, which is very frustrating from an SEO point of view. There should be nothing more difficult about creating a 301 than a 302.
The short version is: 301 the old site to the new if you want to transfer the authority from the old site to the new one. This will ensure that you bring most of that authority with you.
-
A 301 is telling Search engines (and any links) that this link or site has moved permanently, this would then mean the value of the links would be moved to the new location. A link would imply the site is staying and a % of link juice would flow though it compared to more through a 301. Other problem could be you may have duplicate content if your moving the domain.
If you do get a 301 done make sure they don't just 301 it all to the homepage it should be moved each category moved to its counter part (or as close to) as possible to maintain the transfer of authority & juice.
Hope that helps, and good luck!
-
Sorry yes I got a bit confused there. It is moved permanently so it should be a 301 rather than 302. But what is difference between the direct link and the 301. Is it just a case that the 301 can be more difficult to implement? I will not actually be implementing the redirect myself. This will be done by a 3rd party webdesign agency. I suppose I am keen to keep as much of the authority as possible from the old domain. Thanks
-
Is it a temp redirect ? If you're planning on move permanently you may want to think about 301ing the whole site to its relevant counter parts. a Direct Link is good for building up some authority and slowly migrating the site over time making sure each stage goes to plan rather than 301 the whole thing and panic if something goes wrong. It really boils down to your longer term goal.
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
-
Is link equity passed through redirect chains?
Hi there, When redirects are passed through multiple stages e.g. https://www.google.com 301 to http://www.bing.com 301 to http://www.yahoo.com Does http://www.yahoo.com still retain all link equity from the original referring domain, and is there a limit to the redirect chain before Google starts to not pass through link equity? Cheers
Technical SEO | | Corbec8881 -
Spam link? Links from linguee
Hi Everyone My site received a notification of unnatural links in Webmaster Tools and the site has had a penalty applied. I can see there are a lot of links from a site : linguee.com .de. nl. ect ..more than 30k of them! I am not sure where did those links come from! The suddenly appeared over the weekend. Does anyone has similar experience before and any suggestion? Thanks Ricky
Technical SEO | | SEO-SMB0 -
Plenty of 302 Redirects, can they harm SERP?
Hi my client has recently relaunched the website and they use a lot of 302 redirects because they want Google to crawl the pages. They do not plan to add any content to those pages. I advised 301 instead but they do not want to do this. Can too many 302s harm their rankings?
Technical SEO | | GardenPet0 -
302 redirect and NO DATA as HTTP Status in Top Pages in SEOMOZ Link Analysis
I recently performed a link analysis using SEOMOZ and my home page (top page) indicates that there is a 302 status. Is this bad? Also, 2 other key landing pages have [NO STATUS] as the http status and [NO DATA] for the page title. Could anyone offer insight into what might be happening here, and whether or not it's something that is potentially hurting us? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | dstepchew0 -
302 to 301
Hello, We have a temporary redirect (302?) from http url to https url. Seomoz has suggested that we change the 302 temporary redirect to a permanent 301 redirect. Sounds good.... but how do we do that?! Appreciate any and all feedback!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
Redirection Impact on SEO
Need help urgently. There is the situation [This is how is it working now]: 1. Have a global landing page [say when user types in www.mysite.com - takes user to the global landing page: [www.mysite.com/global/en.html]](http://www.mysite.com/global/en.html] ) 2. Users from this landing page can select a country on his/her choice and get redirected say: [www.mysite.com/us/en.html] Would like to change the functionality as below: 1. When user types in www.mysite.com 1a. Would find the location of the request based on GEO IP and if the request is coming from North America region then would redirect the users to: www.mysite.com/us/en.html 1b. If the request is from any other location/region then it would continue to work as it is currently working: take the user to the global landing page: www.mysite.com/global/en.html Would this change have any negative impact or not found by search engines from SEO perspective? If it does then what are the impacts and if does not then why not. If it does then what is the best possible way to address this request. Appriciate your help. Thanks, Koushik Roy
Technical SEO | | KoushikRoy0 -
301 redirecting some pages directly, and the rest to a single page
I've read through the Redirect guide here already but can't get this down in my .htaccess I want to redirect some pages specifically (/contactinfo.html to the new /contact.php) And I want all other pages (not all have equivalent pages on the new site) to redirect to my new (index.php) homepage. How can I set it up so that some specific pages redirect directly, and all others go to one page? I already have the specific oldpage.html -> newpage.php redirects in place, just need to figure out the broad one for everything else.
Technical SEO | | RyanWhitney150 -
301 Redirect vs Domain Alias
We have hundreds of domains which are either alternate spelling of our primary domain or close keyword names we didn't want our competitor to get before us. The primary domain is running on a dedicated Windows server running IIS6 and set to a static IP. Since it is a static IP and not using host headers any domain pointed to the static IP will immediately show the contents of the site, however the domain will be whatever was typed. Which could be the primary domain or an alias. Two concerns. First, is it possible that Google would penalize us for the alias domains or dilute our primary domain "juice"? Second, we need to properly track traffic from the alias domains. We could make unique content for those performing well and sell or let expire those that are sending no traffic. It's not my goal to use the alias domains to artificially pump up our primary domain. We have them for spelling errors and direct traffic. What is the best practice for handling one or both of these issues?
Technical SEO | | briankb0