301-redirect
-
Hi
My website is fairly new and i wasnt aware of the difference btw 'website.com' and 'www.website.com' when i started up. It doesnt matter which one i use as long as i am consistent right ?
Most of my ingoing links are to mainpage on 'website.com'. I have som ingoing links to 'www.website.com' but also some to 'www.website.com/brandname'. is it enough to 301-redir 'www.website.com' to 'website.com' or does it need to be done on several levels ?
I need to have someone do the redirect for me - how can i check its working when its done ?
Dan Lærum
-
Use relative paths, and you lose all link juice when someone scrapes your content and reposts it.
-
On Google WMT, there's an option for preferred domain setting. You can use this. But I do agree with Ryan that it'll solve the issue only for Google not for other search engines.
-
There are other SE's out there then google and you don't want to loose that traffic, so as Ryan stated you can't fix it in GWT.
-
To be clear, you would use Google IN ADDITION TO the other changes, not instead of.
Google WMT will alter how your URL appears on their search pages. If you don't address the issue on your site you will still have the same negative effects.
-
2 things you should keep in mind about with and without www:
- how many pages does google have indexed with and without
- how many links do you have that points towards www vs non-www.. this one is important since not all of your PR will get passed on after a 301. Most but bot all of it
hope it helped
-
Didnt know i could do through google webmaster, thanks.
-
Does it really matter which direction i redirect ? Is it most common to redir to -->www. ?
-
Yes...it should be redirected to www. through .hactess or it can be done through Google webmaster tools.
-
Right back at you Ryan, good point
-
excellent point Rene
This works well for links you create but not for any UGC
-
Ryan is clearly less lazy then me just a short remark to the internal linking:
use relative paths and you will never have to worry about it.
meaning use: /images/someImg.jpg instead of www.yourdomain.com/images/someImg.jpg
-
Your host can create one entry to redirect all non-www traffic to it's www equivalent.
It's easy to confirm the change was made properly. Simply go to any page on your site and you should see it in the "www" form. Then, go to your address bar and remove the "www." portion of the URL, hit enter, then the "www." portion should be re-added and you should be on the same page.
Also, use your SEOmoz toolbar Analyze Page > Page Attributes and check the Status Code section at the bottom. When you try to access a "www." page the status code should show as 200. When you try to access a non-www page the status code should show a 301 redirect to the www page.
Lastly, check every internal link of your site to ensure you are using the www version, along with any signatures and company pages you may have on facebook or other locations.
-
short answer: yes
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
-
301 redirects delay in picking up
Hi I have been involved in the redesign/development of a website which has up until now had a lot of international traffic. On day of migration I uploaded all the 301 redirects to the website (wordpress) using Simple 301 redirect plugin. I tested a number of them and they appeared to be working. I also submitted the new sitemaps to Search Console. Since migration international traffic - particularly from countries such as india, Phillipines, Sri Lanka etc have significantly dropped off whereas the local traffic and some of the international traffic such as USA has remained fairly consistent. Looking at Analytics and entrances recently it appears as though search results are/were showing a number of pages with 404's (one in particular which received significant traffic and for which I had created a 301 redirection) - I have checked this page using the old url and it re-directs correctly for me and today asked a colleague in India to also check - he is getting the redirection fine. Does Google.in take a significantly longer time to pick these up in search results? Or am I missing something?
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing0 -
301 redirect with Magento; still Page authority 0 after 6 weeks
Hi Mozzers! In December '14 I have execute a 301 redirect in the 'old' page in the admin of my Magento store. Now I was surprised to see that the Page Authority is still 0 of the new page 6 weeks after the execution. should I have seen the update of the PA on the new page already after 6 weeks of time? If yes, then I assume that my Magento didn't execute this properly? Old url: http://hippemamashop.nl/mama/boeken/fotoalbum.html
Technical SEO | | aznventure
New page: you will be redirected to the new page after clicking the old page Mm4uBEl0 -
Which way round to 301 redirect?
Hi We have just added a new layered navigation menu to our website. so for example we had Before : www.tidy-books.co.uk/chidlrens-bookcases (this has the seo juice) And Now: http://www.tidy-books.co.uk/childrens-bookcases-book-storage/childrens-bookcases Might be a stupid question but do I redirect the 'now' url to the 'before' url or the the other way round I look forward to hearing your thoughts Thanks
Technical SEO | | tidybooks0 -
Updating inbound links vs. 301 redirecting the page they link to
Hi everyone, I'm preparing myself for a website redesign and finding conflicting information about inbound links and 301 redirects. If I have a URL (we'll say website.com/website) that is linked to by outside sources, should I get those outside sources to update their links when I change the URL to website.com/webpage? Or is it just as effective from a link juice perspective to simply 301 redirect the old page to the new page? Are there any other implications to this choice that I may want to consider? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Liggins0 -
301 redirects - one overall redirect or an individual one for each page url
Hi I am working on a site that is to relaunch later on this year - is best practise for the old urls (of which there are thousands) to write a piece of code that will cover all of the urls and redirect them to the new home page or to individually redirect each url to its new counterpart on the new site. I am naturally concerned about user experience on this plus losing our Google love we currently have but am aware of the time it would take to do this individually. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Pday1 -
Best practice for eCommerce site migration, should I 301 redirect or match URLs on new site
Hi Guys, I have been struggling with this one for quite some time. I am no SEO expert like many of you, rather just a small business owner trying to do the right thing, so forgive me if I say something that makes no sense 🙂 I am moving our eCommerce store from one platform to another, in the process the store is getting a massive face lift. The part I am struggling with is whether I should keep my existing URL structure in place or use 301 redirects to create a cleaner looking URLs. Currently the URLs are a little long and I would love to move to a /category/product_name type format. Of course the goal is not to lose ranking in the process, I rank pretty well for several competitive phrases and do not want to create a negative impact. How would you guys handle this? Thanks, Dinesh
Technical SEO | | MyFairyTaleBooks0 -
Switching from a .org to .io (301 domain redirect)
I'm considering switching my main site from a .org to .io address; the .org is an exact match domain which helped to kickstart it a few years ago and now has about 50% repeat visitors, but was thrown off the Apple affiliation program for trademark infringement. I've found and purchased a nice (non-infringing) .io domain, and I've read the advice here on how to properly 301 the old domain; but my question is - does it matter that it's .io? Is this going to significantly hurt my rankings, even when everything has been 301'd properly? Another thought I had is that I may actually come out better off in the long run, what with Google penalties being applied to exact match domains. Is this a ranking suicide? If so, I'm tempted to leave it as is; even without the affiliation, it's making a good amount every month in ad fees that I don't want to disrupt. Thanks all!
Technical SEO | | w0lfiesmithUK0