Reverse Proxy better than 301 redirect?
-
Are reverse proxies that much better than 301 redirects? Should I invest the time in doing this? I found out about reverse proxies here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-a-reverse-proxy-and-how-can-it-help-my-seo
-
Yeah, essentially what I'm doing is moving www.blog.com to www.othersite.com/blog in order to give othersite.com the blog's google juice.
-
I'm mixed on this.
One thing that I think is often missed is that the way subdomains are used vs subfolders. A lot of times when you have a subfolder - it is linked within the internal structure of the site, while subdomains are not. So link juice is not passed. That's why you don't see *.wordpress.com or *.blogger.com sites outranking everything under the sun, none of the root domain juice is passed down to the subdomain.
However, we've seen for our clients that subdomains still work as long as it's part of the internal link structure - with the added benefit of having 2-4 serp results (mostly with branding type queries).
So with that said, reverse proxies are not the necessarily the same as 301 redirects. In general, you would use a reverse proxy if you had content on a remote server and the easiest way to serve that content is using a subdomain - by using a reverse proxy you can instead use a subfolder instead. While a 301 redirect, is generally used to redirect a page to a newer/canonical page.
However, if you're talking about the best solution to handle subdomains - 301 vs reverse proxy. You may end up doing both if you're using a reverse proxy, you may have to 301 redirect certain content pieces... especially if you're proxy doesn't properly redirect/handle relative paths. The issue is talked about in the comment section.
If you're starting a completely new site - my guess would be that a reverse proxy would be better than a 301. As a reverse proxy would not lose any link juice - in theory.
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
-
Htaccess or url rewrite module for Magento 301 redirects?
I need to do about 6000 redirects for a Magento site. The pages no longer exist. I have tried the URL rewrite module but it isn't working for me and I don't want to do 6000 redirects in the htaccess files. Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tylerj0 -
301 redirects
One of our employees took an SEO class recently. She was told that having too many 301 redirects can hurt SEO. I have never heard of 301 redirects as having a negative impact. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Smart_Start0 -
To Redirect or Not
I have a strange situation and looking for advice on how well a permanent redirect of url will work. I have an eCommerce site called twpstain.com. This site sells TWP Deck stain and the URL/Content is fully owned by me. We do not however own the TWP brand and have always operated with permission from the manufacturer as an Authorized dealer. Circumstance have come up where they now want to be in control of all URLS that have the name "TWP" in them. Not sure if they legally can do this but they can cut me off with product if I do not comply. My options are: 1. A permanent redirect of entire site to new URL that does not have the word "TWP" in the url. 2. Give them the URL but they are willing to have me use the URL as I have in the past. A contract for this would be drawn up to cover me for years to come and possibly offer compensation if they decide not to renew. My concerns are numerous but the question for the Moz community is to how well the 301 redirect will work and will I lose my rankings? I currently dominate the rankings for my site and I very concerned that there will be major loss of sales and traffic. Any help or opinions on this would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dogtopiamichigan0 -
Why is this url redirecting to our site?
I was doing an audit on our site and searching for duplicate content using some different terms from each of our pages. I came across the following result: www.sswug.org/url/32639 redirects to our website. Is that normal? There are hundreds of these url's in google all with the exact same description. I thought it was odd. Any ideas and what is the consequence of this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika220 -
Redirects in .htaccess file
I am using yoast seo plugin for wordpress. I have done several link changes and placed approximately 80-100 301 redirect into .htaccsses file. Is this good practice? Do they have to be there forever? Is it not slowing down site? Or should this be done in different way? Thank you very much Iris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rebeca10 -
Should you ever reverse a 301
Hi Im Looking at reversing a 301 i did 5 months ago, I originally changed names of a site for reasons where the site was going to be split into 2 where part of the site i would run and the other where i would get my business partner to run it However since the 301 i have lost 80% of traffic and cannot find the reason as to what especially as everything looks perfect except the rankings, to put it into context 150 keywords i was tracking all were page 5 and below with 40% being page 1 Now only 7 from that same 150 are in the top 10 pages (First 100 results), The issue i have must be very rare as i have posted for help with little or no response, which tells me that the kind people who have looked could not see any issues as this is normally a very helpful community (below is the last thread i asked for help) http://www.seomoz.org/q/301-redirect-how-to-get-those-juices-flowing So 5 months on i am considering removing the 301 and hoping that some kind of normality returns by reinstating the old URL So my question is that is what im about to do wise, do i have any options, is this something you have done in the past if so how did you get on Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kellymandingo0 -
Multiple domains expiring that have 301 redirects to my primary domain. Am I in trouble?
I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc. ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website. The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com. I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure. Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic. My question: All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com). I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ballanrk0 -
SEOMOZ found basically all my articles and says they need a 301 redirect ?
Hope someone can HELP. So my site looks like it has the proper 301 redirect to www. for the main domain. But for some reason my articles that have a /trackback on them redirect to same address with out the trackback at the end. How do i fix this? seomoz is saying all my articles need a 301 redirect .all like 100. Thanks any help would be great
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jstgobig0