What passes more value, a contextual link or a 1-to-1 301 redirect?
-
I have a client who is running a website which just lost a significant amount of rankings and by extension organic traffic in a redesign. Call it newsite.com.
The client also has an older site that will no longer be updated, but has good authority that's built up over time. It even out ranks the current site for some queries. This website has no real value to my client.
We want to try to pass the authority from oldsite.com to newsite.com as efficiently as possible. Each site has pages a good amount of matching pages, ie. oldsite.com/subject1 and newsite.com/subject1
My question is, would it provide more value to put a contextual link on the old page or simply redirect the entire page to the new site?
oldsite.com/subject1 contains a link to newsite.com/subject1
oldsite.com/subject1 301 redirects to newsite.com/subject1
My guess is that the 301 would pass more value, but would like a SEOMoz opinion as well!
Thanks!
-
My vote goes for 301. It makes more sense.
-
301 is going to be the way to go here. Not only is it going to pass a little more juice but chances are if you have a new site the likelihood that much of the content is identical... well you get where I'm going with this
-
John, I think you definitely are right. If you 301 all old pages to their new destinations, search engines will count each link from the old page to the new page. This will help your PR/mR much better than a contextual link.You can then get the benefit from 2 or more links per old page rather than just 1 optimized link.
Also, consider the domain registrant of oldsite.com and newsite.com. If they are the same, then those links won't pass as much value if you place a contextual link on the page
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
-
Canonicals Passing Link Juice?
After having read this thread, the answer seems to be a tentative "Yes", but I am curious if I am doing this wrong, or causing myself problems, for a specific situation. We have a thread on the forums that has over 50,000 views for that thread alone. No doubt many people have linked to it across the web, and it ranks very well with Google. But we are dealing with a major problem in that the main portion of our site (home page and core content) which are the most important, aren't ranking in Google at all. A big part of this is because that part of the site hasn't been updated in years, whereas the forum is updated daily. By users. We've begun putting out quality content in our News Center lately, and hoping to start boosting its presence in Google. We have an article on the exact same topic that the forum thread covers. I was thinking of putting a canonical on that thread, pointing to the article, and hopefully pointing some very powerful link juice, popularity, and traffic into our news center articles. People can comment there as well if they like. Are there any potential downsides to doing this? My hope is that the forum thread loses rankings and the article takes on its rankings. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HLTalk1 -
Moving to a new domain name - 301 redirect NOT an option
Hi everyone My question concerns moving from an old to a new domain name without losing all previous SEO efforts. I am aware that a properly executed 301 redirect is the answer and way to go as well as telling Google about it in Webmaster Tools. However, what is the situation, if you do not own the old domain name anymore? If you have no means of getting back the old domain name and wanting to basically mask/switch the already existing website to the new domain name, will search engines penalise the "new site" as a duplicate, since the "old site" is still in the search engine rankings? I know that not being able to execute a proper 301 redirect and starting out with a new domain means a fresh start, but what is the best way to minimise the negative impact (if any)? Basically dropping the sites' current content and starting out new in favour of the new domain name is not really an option. Even if you were to take the content from the old site and place it on another site, this would surely be seen as duplicate too. Anyone thinks that Webmaster Tools/Google is savvy enough to spot the difference when the "old site" gets removed and the "new one" added instead (in Webmaster Tools). I read something along the lines about having your host point the DNS from the old site to the new one. Could something like be helpful? Thanks all in advance for your help and input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hermski0 -
Can an incorrect 301 redirect or .htaccess code cause 500 errors?
Google Webmaster Tools is showing the following message: _Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request. _ Before I contact the person who manages the server and hosting (essentially asking if the error is on his end) is there a chance I could have created an issue with an incorrect 301 redirect or other code added to .htaccess incorrectly? Here is the 301 redirect code I am using in .htaccess: RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/.]+/)*(index.html|default.asp)\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^(([^/.]+/)*)(index|default) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www.example.com)?$ [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] Could adding the following code after that in the .htaccess potentially cause any issues? BEGIN EXPIRES <ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn
ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-icon "access plus 1 year"</ifmodule> END EXPIRES (Edit) I'd like to add that there is a Wordpress blog on the site too at www.example.com/blog with the following code in it's .htaccess: BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Thanks0 -
301 Redirect To Another 301 Redirect
Hi, We have a client with an old domain that they want to redirect to their primary domain. They also have a few older domains pointing to the old domain. Do you recommend leaving them as redirects that point to the old domain? This will create a redirect to a redirect situation. Or, is it better to go ahead and redirect those older domains to the primary one's, removing one layer of redirect? Thank you! Jessie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JessieT0 -
How to decide on which site to 301 redirect
Hi there I'd like your opinions please! My client currently has their website at not-very-good-url.it which has a really good link profile they also have duplicate sites at: much-better-brand-name-url.it and much-better-brand-name-url.com but both these other sites have only a handful of links in. How important do you think a better brand url is? And therefore do you think it would be better to 301 to a better brand URL and take the risk that the link profile will get hit? Or leave the main site where it is and 301 the other two to it? Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
Best time to choose a canonical URL & 301 redirect
I have taken on the task of getting a fairly huge eCommerce site more SEO friendly & have just realized that no URL has been chosen as our preferred domain. Should we designate a preferred domain now or wait until after the first of the year since we are hitting our busy period right now?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Winoman0 -
Questions about 301 Redirects
I have about 10 - 15 URLs that are redirecting to http://www.domainname.comwww.domainname.com/. (which is an invalid URL)The website is on a Joomla platform. Does anyone know how I can fix this? I can't figure out where the problem is coming from.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnParker27920 -
301 Redirect All Url's - WWW -> HTTP
Hi guys, This is part 2 of a question I asked before which got partially answered; I clicked question answered before I realized it only fixed part of the problem so I think I have to post a new question now. I have an apache server I believe on Host Gator. What I want to do is redirect every URL to it's corresponding alternative (www redirects to http). So for example if someone typed in www.mysite.com/page1 it would take them to http://mysite.com/page1 Here is a code that has made all of my site's links go from WWW to HTTP which is great, but the problem is still if you try to access the WWW version by typing it, it still works and I need it to redirect. It's important because Google has been indexing SOME of the URL's as http and some as WWW and my site was just HTTP for a long time until I made the mistake of switching it now I'm having a problem with duplicate content and such. Updated it in Webmaster Tools but I need to do this regardless for other SE's. Thanks a ton! RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DustinX0