301 redirect
-
We have just had an outside SEO agency report on our site: One of things brought up were arounf broken links, and how they class them as broken links.
Could any body tell me whether this statement holds true please, as I am not aware of this
"Our latest intelligence shows that google are downgrading ranking from sites that feature 301 redirects within the internal link structure".
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Regards
-
I need to 301-redirect about 25 product pages because I'm having a content management system installed in part of the site.
What's the definitive answer on this -- is some link authority lost along a 301 link? These page rank superbly & are high-traffic, so I can't afford to take unnecessary risks.
-
Thanks Sameer, I'll hav a look at those.
Regards
-
Sometimes the internal redirection issues will not show up on OSE. OSE data is not real time so it will take couple of weeks to get the most updated one (as per the last I heard from Rand in one of the webinar).
I generally use Xenu link Sleuth to identify all the redirection and page not found issues. Another tool that we use which is more advacned is Gsitecrawler.
-
Thanks Sameer,
They ahve provided us with a list of 301 directs: I cant find these on OSE though, and to be fair they don't really make sense {as to why we would want a 301on these links in the first place}
Sameer i look after the SEO for my agecny and their clients: If indeed what they are saying is correct and we have 301's on internal links I can't see them, and the case they are pointing out I would use rel=canonical.
Should they show in OSE: I've tried this and it says we have zero, which is my thoughts, as i would have had to do them
Cheers
-
Have they provided you a report showing all the links from each page that are linking to a 301 link instead of directly linking to the destination page? I would not take their words unless they show you reports.
301 in the internal link structure should not directly impact the ranking so as to down grade rankings but it could impact your page rank juice flow. The concept is similar to having multiple hoops between origin and destination page. If you have a link on the page that is pointing to a 301 version instead of direct link then chances (based on page rank juice flow math) your are not allowing a complete flow of juice through those links.
Here are some great posts from Rand on page rank juice flow
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/determining-whether-a-page-site-passes-link-juice
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-science-of-ranking-correlations
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-juice-is-loose (although controlling page rank is not a good practice anymore but this post is highly educational for anyone to understand the page rank flow)
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Sameer
-
Me too Thomas. I have requested that they share their "latest intelligence" and correlation with lost rankings. when/If I get an answer I'll be sure to post it.
Big thanks for everyones input here, really appreciated.
-
The only thing I don't understand about their claim is that it is "our latest intelligence". If that holds true, they are very slow catching industry news
301 is never perfect, but almost always the best way to keep rankings when moving content.
Wpuld also love to hear their elaboration of their latest intelligence.
-
This is interesting, because I assume this to be true and yet I've encountered the opposite. I used a simple 301 to direct an outdated page to a more relevant page on the same topic. Both pages were well-optimised, and the (slightly) newer page had more, higher-quality backlinks. I vanished from the SERPs for my keyword, and 3 months later hadn't returned - despite expecting Google to simply replace the listing for the old page with the new one. When I removed the 301, the original page appeared in the same position in the SERPs.
Because of this, I think it's best to be careful when it comes to 301s.
-
Hi Sean, never heard of that or experienced it. Here is a usefull interview by Eric Enge with Matt Cutts that really goes into the effects of a 301: http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml.
I guess what they mean is the situation that if you are on page A on your site and click on the link to page B, and a redirect takes you to page C. Basically you could have gone from A to C directly. As the 301 dilutes a little bit of the page rank, it is by definition that sites utilising 301 internally this way lose a very little bit.
-
So you are 301ing from one domain to another? I have noticed this to take a long time to transfer any link juice and rankings. Two months which I thought was forever!
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70LR8H8pn1M
Typically passes, but it can't be guaranteed. Yeah, that helps. Thanks Matt
-
Hi Sean,
As already mentioned Matt Cutts does talk about this and confirms that some link juice is lossed. You can catch his videos on YouTube at GoogleWebmasterHelp
I have personally not noticed any degregation in rankings due to using 301s. I will say that you should be careful with your 301s not to daisy chain them more than 3 times according to Matt if I remember correctly. Personally, I rather work my .htaccess file a bit more carfully not to 301 more than once or twice.
Cheers
-
Yes Matt Cutts also said that the anchor text value does not always go across or that Google does not guarantee it will work 100%.
-
Hello again Goodnewscowboy. I have just done exactly what you have said. I need to know obviously for future reference. I guess I was a little put out with some of the stuff they had put in there, which I thought didn't hold true.
Thanks for your time again, great to hear from you also.
Kind Regards
Sean
-
Thanks for the prompt reply Dejan, greatly appreciated. As far as I'm aware we haven't used 301's on internal linking. I have checked this in OSE and it doesn't show any?
My thoughts are the same as yours Dejan. We have recently had a redeisgn of the site { a couple of weeks ago} and to be fair I was looking at 301 ing some of the old content which held small amounts of link juice.
Thanks for our time again
-
Hey Sean: The only thing about 301'a and Google that I'm aware of is that 301's do lose a little "link juice" But this would be from any link, external or internal. I've not heard of a difference in ranking between the two.
Ask them to show you what that "latest intelligence" is and have them explain their rationale. If it's the real deal, they should be able to back it up with something.
-
The question is why use 301s for internal navigation? If it's for moved pages then it's appropriate.
Google in fact encourages 301 as a most robust solution for sorting out moved pages (apart from fixing it on the core level). Secondary to that would be use of canonical, some webmasters even go for meta redirect or good old 404.
By my observations there is nothing that can harm you, even chained 301s work - unless you manage to do something really exotic!
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
-
How do you fix redirect chains and temporary redirects?
Hi, I have a lot of issues popping up with temporary redirects and redirect chains. I'm still confused as to what exactly redirect chains are and I don't know how to find where the "chains" are or how to fix them. I'm having two issues mainly:1. Temporary RedirectsI have around 100 pages on our www.twowayradiosfor.com website that are being flagged as temporary redirects. All of them have one thing in common: they are review pages (basically, when a customer clicks on the Review button to review a certain product, they are redirected to a review page for that product).URL Example: https://www.twowayradiosfor.com/reviewhelpful.asp?ProductCode=CLS1410-COMBO&ID=44&yes=noI went into our website and set any URL containing the following as noindex:/review.aspWill that fix the issue? If yes, will I also need to do that for any URL containing /reviewhelpful.asp?2. Redirect ChainsIt seems like basically every product page on my website has this issue (over 100 pages). Here's an example of one:https://www.twowayradiosfor.com/Motorola-CLS1110-p/cls1110.htmI don't see any broken links on this page or links that redirect to another page that redirects, etc. What is causing this? Is it something on my header bar that is redirecting (since that header bar appears on every page, maybe that is why this issue shows up on a lot of pages)?I am new to Moz and still trying to figure this stuff out. I really appreciate any help. Thanks, Sawyer
Technical SEO | | AllChargedUp0 -
Best Practice - Disavow tool for non-canonical domain, 301 Redirect
The Situation: We submitted to the Disavow tool for a client who (we think) had an algorithmic penalty because of their backlink profile. However, their domain is non-canonical. We only had access to http://clientswebsite.com in Webmaster Tools, so we only submitted the disavow.txt for that domain. Also, we have been recommending (for months - pre disavow) they redirect from http://clientswebsite.com to http://www.clientswebsite.com, but aren't sure how to move forward because of the already submitted disavow for the non-www site. 1.) If we redirect to www. will the submitted disavow transfer or follow the redirect? 2.) If not, can we simply re-submit the disavow for the www. domain before or after we redirect? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | thebenro0 -
Advice on whether we 301 redirect a page or update existing page?
Hi guys, any advice would be really appreciated. We have an existing page that ranks well for 'red widgets'. The page isn't monetised right now, but we're bringing in a new product onto our site that we optimised for 'blue widgets'. Unfortunately, not enough research was done for this page and we've now realised that consumers actually search for 'red widgets' when looking for the product we're creating as 'blue widgets'. The problem with this is that the 'red widgets' page is in a completely different category of our site than what it needs to be (it needs to be with 'blue widgets'). So, my question is; Should we do a 301 redirect from our 'red-widgets' page to our 'blue-widgets' page which we want to update and optimise the content on there for 'red-widgets'. Or, should we update the existing red-widgets page to have the right products and content on there, even thought it is in the wrong place of our site and users could get confused as to why they are there. If we do a 301 redirect to our new page, will we lose our rankings and have to start again, or is there a better way around this? Thanks! Dave
Technical SEO | | davo230 -
301 redirects don't work properly
Hello all, I've been working on 301 redirects for a bit and normally it's no problem but some seem to be going wrong. Redirect 301 /3-zits.html http://www.bankstellenshop.com/banken/3-zits.html This one works properly but the following one gives a very strange result as it goes to http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen.html/u (no idea where the .html comes from) Redirect 301 /bankstellen/u http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen/u.html Any idea what I'm doing wrong or what should change? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | Kapottefietsband0 -
How long after google crawl do you need 301 redirects
We have just added 301's when we moved our site. Google has done a crawl & spat back a few errors. How long do I need to keep those 301's in place? I may need to change some. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Paul_MC0 -
Do I need a 301 redirect on htaccess if Apache is already configured to serve?
Apache is set up to serve both www and non-www versions the same content. Do I still need to put a 301 redirect in the htaccess file?
Technical SEO | | Ocularis0 -
What if my host doesn't have the 301 redirect feature?
Ok, So i need to do a 301 redirect but my host doesn't have the feature with htaccess. I currently use yahoo. What are my options?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
301 Redirects
Hello, I have a problem with my website. I have a page on my website http://www.ensorbuilding.com/page.php/aboutus but if i type in www.ensorbuilding.com/page.php/aboutus/f8e45e9d9df6140bb5a7ff1173e8d828 or www.ensorbuilding.com/page.php/aboutus/0f0eea5e9ab0a3e8d91fad8fc0d3ce9c it still displays the about us page. Google is seeing this as duplicate content so what I would want to do is 301 redirect anything after www.ensorbuilding.com/page.php/aboutus . How could I implement a 301 redirect in this way?
Technical SEO | | danielmckay70