Is 301 redirecting all old URLS after a new site redesign to the root domain bad for SEO?
-
After a new site redesign ...would it hinder our rankings if we 301 redirected all old URLS that are returning 404 error codes to the root domain (home page) ?
Would this be a good temporary solution until we are able to redirect the pages to the appropriate corresponding page?
Thanks so much!
-
You will need to check the server error log files for the new site in order to pick these up, if this hasn't been detected in WMT.
-
There's a free XML sitemap creator at http://www.auditmypc.com/xml-sitemap.asp. Not only will it create a sitemap for you that you can upload, but will also show you any internal bad links which can cause you the biggest problems.
Outside of that Webmaster Tools will be your most effective tool for catching those external sites linking to your old or missing pages. Be sure to reach out to repeat offenders and ask them to update their links to you.
-
If the URL is a 404, there's no "link juice" to pass. The home page of any site will always have the most page rank anyway. I wouldn't be concerned with that. Focus on user experience.
-
If they were, and still are, indexed in Google just do a site: search
-
Great!
Now is the only way to find old pages that weren't redirected to a new site is through webmaster tools correct?
Are there any other tools out there that would find old URLS.. URLS maybe even a year old that weren't redirected?
Thanks for all the reassurance so far.
-
"Google is aware that 404 errors can't always be avoided since you don't have any control over someone creating a bad link on an external site. So the impact on your SEO should be little to none unless it's completely out of hand and occurring as a result of something internal such as a bad navigational structure."
I respectfully disagree, the SEO impact is not because Google will punish you for having 404's, the SEO impact is that the new corresponding pages will not rank and the old pages that no longer exist will lose their rank after a little while of remaining in the index and taking visitors to a 404 and not converting.
-
Are you hoping to just make it easier on yourself by sending all old pages to the root rather than mapping them to the most relevant pages? If you have a large site I understand but I would strongly suggest, at the VERY LEAST, mapping the more important pages to the new site's counterpart pages that are the most relevant and then you can send the remaining pages to the home page or a sitemap.htm page. I don't know that pointing them all to the root would be 'bad', per-say, but I feel you would be missing an opportunity to help boost new internal pages that you need ranking asap.
-
Thanks. I have a custom 404 page but what if I'm looking to pass along the link juice from pages on an old site to the new site. Will this pass along any page authority by just redirecting it to the root domain?
-
Google is aware that 404 errors can't always be avoided since you don't have any control over someone creating a bad link on an external site. So the impact on your SEO should be little to none unless it's completely out of hand and occurring as a result of something internal such as a bad navigational structure.
I would not suggest 301 redirecting 404 pages to the home page of a site because it's frustrating to users who may not be aware of what's going on. It can be potentially frustrating if they're expecting to see a specific page and keep getting pushed to the home page with no explanation as to why it's happening.
Your best bet is going to be creating a custom 404 page that indicates that the page is not available and make suggestions to other areas on your site and a means to contact you if they can't find what they're looking for. That way they know what's happening and don't get frustrated in the process.
And don't forget to continually monitor the reporting errors in Google Webmaster Tools to see the biggest offenders. If you see missing pages getting double digit visits, build an actual page on that URL directing them to the right alternate place (assuming that the page actually exists elsewhere in your new site setup). If there are simply too many 404 errors happening, just stick with the custom 404 solution above and clean as you monitor the activity. But it's just not a good user experience or practice to 301 without an explanation.
-
Yes. That is what should be done I agree.
But since it wasn't done.. instead of just leaving it & not doing anything about it... would it be better to redirect any 404 pages to the root domain in the mean time?
Or should it be left until we can redirect all the individual pages to their appropriate new page?
Thanks
-
No, you should have the redirects map out and implemented prior to launch or risk the loss of their organic position.
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
-
Is 301 redirects a deal breaker for Migrating content or moving to new software?
I have this forum with about 2 million posts for 16 years on root of the domain. I am looking to switch softwares but the top ones won’t help setup 301 redirects. But I can still migrate all my members and all my content (threads/posts), would Google still reindex all our content or if we don’t setup redirects would it really kill our entire traffic for a long time or maybe just a month or so? I really want to migrate to software that isn’t forum based but rather something that offers courses, chat, live video streaming, subscription based etc. and this is the only way to do so OR to set it up on an entirely new domain OR subdomain but to me that is like starting all over from scratch? I could archive the forum to read only and set it up on subdomain or another root domain - then on the archived forum setup banners and a pop up linking to the new site or new subdomain? . This is such a hard decision for us as the current forum we have had for so many years has lost members posting from 1k a day to just a handful a day, our fb group though gets 1k a day so I’m trying to revive a site into something more modern and has all the training features we can offer as well.
Technical SEO | | vbsk0 -
URL Redirect
Hi All, So we have employees who can own their own domains for business, however, one employee has a domain that links back to our main site, but when it does, the URL and Page title of our main site, still say his own domain. IE: www.johndoe.com links to www.mysite.com except the url and itle still say www.johndoe.com What are the implications of this? Thank you
Technical SEO | | PeteEllard0 -
My old URL's are still indexing when I have redirected all of them, why is this happening?
I have built a new website and have redirected all my old URL's to their new ones but for some reason Google is still indexing the old URL's. Also, the page authority for all of my pages has dropped to 1 (apart from the homepage) but before they were between 12 to 15. Can anyone help me with this?
Technical SEO | | One2OneDigital0 -
301 redirect Question
Hi all, I have a client who has a domain lets say www.xyz.de which is redirected 301 to www.zyx.de. Now they're working on a relaunch and they want to use the www.xyz.de as their origibnal doman after that. So, at the end the www.zyx.de - which is indexed by Google - should be redirected to www.xyz.de. It vice versa. So the redirect becomes the original and the original becomes the redirect 😕 Is there anything we have to care off? Or will that run into the hell? Thanx. Seb.
Technical SEO | | TheHecksler0 -
Redirecting a questionable domain to a trusted domain
I have a question!
Technical SEO | | FDFPres
We have 2 domains operating within the same retail sector. One of them is for our bricks and mortar business and the other is a new brand we launched as a nationwide e-retailer. We aggressively built links for the new one and achieved some very good search positioning, where we remained for about 4 months until the google updates of the first half of this year started biting. The domain never received a warning from google or anything, but the links have clearly been devalued to a point where the domain is now virtually buried for the most competitive terms. However, the domain does still get around 100-200 visitors per day, and has a DA of 38. We're thinking about a reshuffle that would involve putting the products in to our brick and mortar business website, and redirecting the brand domain to the bricks and mortar domain. Thank you for reading this far! the question is then, is there a danger of the bricks and mortar domain being tarnished by this? as i said the brand domain hasn't had any notices of penalty from google but it has definitely been hit by updates.0 -
SEO URLs?
What are the best practices for generating SEO-friendly headlines? dashes between words? underscores between words? etc. Looking for a programatically generated solution that's using editor-written headlines to produce an SEO-friendly URL Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ShaneHolladay0 -
Redesigning the site with same Domain (IMP.)
technical SEO question - If we take down a site and use the same domain but just redesign the whole site. I guess sometimes in this case Google still keeps indexing old pages though they do not exist now! What the solution for this? Google suggests redirect them to a 404 page but in this case as its same domain- Is it possible that we throw 404 errors and redirect them to 404 page and this 404 page exists in the new site itself (but of course we don't have link our menu to this 404 page) (if that makes sense)? Would appreciate if you can suggest or add anything to above topic.
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Using DNS & 301 redirects to gain control over a rogue site
I'd appreciate peoples' views on the following please. We have been approached by a client whose website does not rank # 1 for their own distinctive brand name due to this position being taken by a site they had developed for them by an affiliate some years back. The affiliate's site is clearly seen by Google as the definitive site for the brand - being older, having more links & in both Yahoo & DMOZ. The relationship has soured with the affiliate & the client wants to take control of the affiliate site & have it 301 redirect to the 'real' brand site. The affiliate won't cooperate (funny that). However whilst the client doesn't have control over the affiliate's website, they do own the domain. Given this, it seems that an option is to temporarily create a 1 page website on another server, change the affiliate website domain DNS settings to point to this, & in turn have that 301 re-direct to the client's website. This is a bit of a round about approach, but necessary because the affiliate won't directly 301 the site they control - despite the client owning it. (As I say the relationship has soured). If you think there's a better alternative approach to this problem (aside from litigation), I'd appreciate hearing it please. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | SureFire0