Too many 301 redirects to home page - is this possible?
-
If a site has a bunch of 404’s that are basically old URL’s that no longer work and point to pages or documents that don’t exist anymore - Can someone clarify if it’s a problem when fixing a bunch of these 404’s to point them all to the home page?
so if there is not really anywhere else that is applicable for the old broken URL, is it really a problem to 301 old pages to the site home page?
I have read some different things on this recently on some different sites, so I just wondered what the latest thinking on this was….thanks...
-
The answer is NO, there is no inherent risk of ranking loss or credibility loss when redirecting old URL's. Think of it like the post office, lets say you move a lot and as a result you have become very familiar with their change of address form. The post office isn't going to delay the delivery of your mail just because your Dads in the military or your Mom keeps moving to escape old flames. Relocating is a part of life and when it comes down to it the Post Office and Google, for that matter, thank you for 301'ing your mail so it doesn't stack up and clutter the Index with undeliverables.
-
Found it! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use Check out the section "Redirecting all pages in one go to a single URL" "Although the intention may not be manipulative, there have been cases of people doing this to try and consolidate all the link juice from loads of pages into one page, to make that page stronger. This can sometimes put up a flag to Google who may come and take a closer look at whats going on." This post does also come with a Matt Cutts video discussing this. Hope that helps!
-
I swear I read in a recent post that Google frowns on large redirect to your homepage... Am I crazy??? I tried to find where I read this but can't remember. Anyone? Bueler?
-
No not at all. I do this for all old product that have fallen off. I redirect them back to their category page (not the home page).
I would however, not try to do this in the htaccess file, but within the head of php page. This automates the process and keeps you from having to manually change the htaccess file often and gives you a way to evaluate the URL to determine the best place to redirect to.
I hope that helps.
-
I took over a website once and we redid it. The content was old and stale, a review site of products years old. We did a new url structure and new content, but we didn't redo the content of the old reviews. There were hundreds of URLs that got redirected to the home page. I pretty much took the entire old url structure and sent that whole directory to the home page. I only pulled out a few that had new counterparts. Hasn't harmed us, top 5 ranking. I wouldn't worry about it. Google hates it when you get lots of 301s from other domains, as in you bought up a bunch of old expired ones and redirected all their urls to your home page. That would be a bad idea. Internal links I don't think matter at all from an seo perspective.
-
Hmmm, hard to say exactly but maybe if we look at the http status codes and their meanings it may help you to make a more informed decision.
The status codes are detailed in full here:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.htmlIn brief, they are as follows:
301 - the requested resource has moved permanently
404 - the requested resource is unavailable
410 - the requested resource has gone
So really, just use common sense. If the pages have an alternative then 301 the missing page to it's closest alternative. If the pages have no alternative and they get many requests then, they should have an alternative so create one, or, link it to the homepage - maybe. If the pages have lots of inbound links and have no replacement, create one, or 301 them to the homepage.
Generally, if the page has no real alternative, does little traffic and has no links then allow it to 404 but use a good custom 404 page to help signpost them on their way.
You also have the 410 gone code but in practice, I have never seen anyone use that so a combination of 301 & 404 pages with a liberal sprinkling of common sense is the best approach.
Some great resources here:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/http-status-codes
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo
Hope it helps
Marcus
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 many hyphens are allowed in page titles or image names?
When I was going through certification, I was told it should be limited to one or two. I was curious if there is a change.
On-Page Optimization | | SeobyKP0 -
Why is Google replacing my meta title with the business name on home page?
For all queries that return the home page, Google is not showing my meta title. Instead it replaced it with the official business name which of course makes it harder to rank for key terms since they don't exist now in the meta title. You can see this is you search on "mt view estate planning attorney". The site in question is dureelaw.com and the title showing is "The Law Office of Daniel L. DuRee." View the source and you'll see my meta title. Why is Google substituting it?
On-Page Optimization | | katandmouse0 -
Noindex child pages (whose content is included on parent pages)?
I'm sorry if there have been questions close to this before... I've using WordPress less like a blogging platform and more like a CMS for years now... For content management purposes we organize a lot of content around Parent/Child page (and custom-post-type) relationships; the Child pages are included as tabbed content on the Parent page. Should I be noindexing these child pages, since their content is already on the site, in full, on their Parent pages (ie. duplicate content)? Or does it not matter, since the crawlers may not go to all of the tabbed content? None of the pages have shown up in Moz's "High Priority Issues" as duplicate content but it still seems like I'm making the Parent pages suffer needlessly... Anything obvious I'm not taking into consideration? By the by, this is my first post here @ Moz, which I'm loving; this site and the forums are such a great resource! Anyways, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | rsigg0 -
Too many links
My site index has recently showed up during crawl - with a warning of too many links (885). Should I be adding the no follow tag to this page? Wall Quotes, Vinyl Wall Quotes, Family Sayings, Baby Boy Quotes http://www.enchantingquotes.com/ind.html Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | joziepaige0 -
Too many On-Page Links warning + Javascript Menu
We do have javascript menus on each page. These are used by a visitor to contact a specific office in a specif city. Could this be where all these links are being counted? I don't see them elsewhere? What about links that are in the footer? They actually link to the same pages as the menus, but are just straight links.
On-Page Optimization | | Stevej240 -
Blog page outranks static page for KW -- why?
Blog page ranks 10 in Google, while the static page is on page 7. What makes it more interesting is that the blog page scores an "F" with the Term Target tool while the static page scores an "A". Static page has more inbound links and a mR/mT of 3.89/ 4.54 vs. 3.71/ 4.14 for the blog page. Any ideas on how to approach this one?
On-Page Optimization | | 540SEO0 -
Should one page with markers or six separate pages?
Hi - I'm working on a site that was set up with 6 bios on one page, with markers jumping to each person's name. I was thinking about separating those into 6 different pages, but not sure if that's the right thing to do. Advice about keeping the bios on one page vs splitting them up? (Am I more likely to rank for those peoples' names if I have a unique page, or is the one page url with each different marker in it, just as good?) Ranking well for those names isn't a huge goal of the site, but it would be nice to make the choice that would help with that rank. Thanks for your input Emma
On-Page Optimization | | emmas0 -
Home page ranking dropped below internal pages
The index page for a site I manage has dropped significantly - internal pages rank above it. It's a new site, 2 months old but was ranking at 1st. Any suggestions as to how I can debug this?
On-Page Optimization | | OptioPublishing0