302 error removing site from results
-
I have a client who had a screwy url structure based off of parameters and all. They hired a developer that added the keyword to the end of the url and set up 302 redirects to the new keyword included url.
Since then the entire site has virtually gone missing in the results but it is not penalized. I put in a request with webmaster tools for reconsideration and they said there was no penalty.
I only just found the 302 problem today and think this is probably the problem. Could this remove a site from the search results?
-
As for issue #4. I believe that is where they used to have pages for each dimension of a product. So it would be upper level, sub level, product level.
Some products have hundreds of the same thing but with one inch different so they removed those pages and redirected them.
-
It's a little funky, but a couple of things I'm seeing:
(1) Some of your internal links (your catalog links) have the special character code (&) for the ampersands. Although browsers can resolve it, those are definitely not appropriate for URLs in href="" values and could be disrupting internal link-juice. I can't believe it's the whole story, but it isn't helping.
(2) Having your major categories 302-redirect is definitely not a good bet. Unfortunately, I also don't think it's the entire story. You're not even ranking for very specific brand terms, and the home-page is clearly indexed. I would fix (2) ASAP, but I don't know if it's the whole story.
(3) You've got the blog off on a sub-domain with a few indexed pages, but it seems to have no content. Unless you're going to ramp that up, it's probably counter-productive.
(4) I'm seeing some weird data in OSE and found that all of your non-www pages are 301-redirecting to the home-page, instead of the appropriate URL. For example:
http://metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=17
...this should go to a category page, but instead goes to the home-page. If you have links to the non-www version, this is potentially a problem. Add this to (1), (2) and (4) and you're compounding the mess.
(5) You have a fair chunk of links from low-value sources. I won't say spammy in all cases, but free link directories, link exchanges, etc. I don't want to list a bunch of examples, since this is a public question. You're teetering on the edge a bit, quality-wise, I suspect.
So, can I tell you definitively which of these it is? Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to completely separate them. I think you should tackle (1), (2) and (4) ASAP. Fix the internal problems, because then the picture will be MUCH clearer. I'd definitely take a look at your link profile and make sure there's nothing too questionable - you may have to tackle that at the same time.
-
I added more info
-
The site is indexed but does not rank for anything at all. It used to and now it doesnt ever since the 302s were added
For instance
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01
goes to
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01&C=Steel_Angle
The site is ugly and has poor navigation but that is not something they wish to change. On page is ok but not the best. Their link profile is again not the best but webmaster tools says there are no problems and when I put in a reconsideration request they said nothing was wrong.
It does not rank for anthing, not even its own company name. Nowhere in the top 100.
I want a brand new, more modern and clean site to be done. That however is not really viable.
The home page does not have a 302 but everything else essentially does.
There is no robots.txt file. There is no noindex.
The 302 is the only major thing that we have come across. Been looking into this for weeks and not finding anything that should be causing this to happen
-
It's a little tough to tell without seeing the URLs in question, unfortunately, but it is possible, yes. When you say "has virtually gone missing", what do you mean, precisely? It usually boils down to a continuum:
(1) Not indexed
(2) Indexed but not ranking
(3) Ranking but poorly
A bad 302 setup is more likely to cause (1) and maybe cross into (2) then (3), but it really does depend. The first step is to see how you're being indexed. The other question is if the 302 is creating duplicates or causing crawl/index problems - for example, are both versions of the URL being indexed (that could also be bad)?
If the correct URL is being indexed and it's ranking, but it's just not ranking very well, then I suspect you've got more going on than the 302s. If nothing else, fixing the problem will make the situation cleaner and easier to diagnose. If you add technical problems on top of other problems (like link profile issues), sorting out the mess can be extremely difficult.
-
Is the homepage also 302'd ? Are the pages indexable ? Have you tried to do fetch as Google Bot ? Check the HTTP headers to see what it returns for the homepage as well as some example URLs linked from the homepage. Also check to make sure there's no meta noindex or anything like that. I would also check the robots.txt In my opinion, the 302 could be the least likely culprit, but it might be something either related to that or something from the above. I hope it helps. If not post or pm me the URL.
-
Hey webfeatseo,
First of all what you need to understand is what 302 redirect means: for that I advice you to check Dr. Pete's infographic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes
Now to go further to your question, would it be possible for us to see an URl? It would easy our job to help you out.
Cheers,
Istvan
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
-
Query on Site Architecture
Hi All, When I check on my ecommerce site in one of the architecture tool in that my Ecommerce Homepage interlink with 765 pages whereas when I check few competitors and big brands then there homepage linked with 28 pages, 33, 47, 57 etc not like my site 765 pages. Do I am wrong anywhere? Can you please check the screenshot of mine & one of the competitor's site architecture? Because as per me site architecture also play good role in google organic ranking. vXs5dh2 16wre
Technical SEO | | pragnesh96390 -
Site's IP showing WMT 'Links to My Site'
I have been going through, disavowing spam links in WMT and one of my biggest referral sources is our own IP address. Site: Covers.com
Technical SEO | | evansluke
IP: 208.68.0.72 We have recently fixed a number of 302 redirects, but the number of links actually seems to be increasing. Is this something I should ignore / disavow / fix using a redirect?0 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Duplicate Page Errors
Hey guys, I'm wondering if anyone can help... Here is my issue... Our website:
Technical SEO | | TCPReliable
http://www.cryopak.com
It's built on Concrete 5 CMS I'm noticing a ton of duplicate page errors (9530 to be exact). I'm looking at the issues and it looks like it is being caused by the CMS. For instance the home page seems to be duplicating.. http://www.cryopak.com/en/
http://www.cryopak.com/en/?DepartmentId=67
http://www.cryopak.com/en/?DepartmentId=25
http://www.cryopak.com/en/?DepartmentId=4
http://www.cryopak.com/en/?DepartmentId=66 Do you think this is an issue? Is their anyway to fix this issue? It seems to be happening on every page. Thanks Jim0 -
What should I do with URLs that cause site map errors?
Hi Mozzers, I have a client who uses an important customer database and offers gift cards via https://clients.mindbodyonline.com located within the navigation which causes sitemap errors whenever it is submitted since domain is different. Should I ask to remove those links from navigation? if so where can I relocate those links? If not what should I do to have a site map without any errors? Thanks! 1n16jlL.png
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Open site explorer varied results according to country
We have a global team and we have noticed something unusual. When we do a "Compare link metrics" search in Open Site Explorer in the US our client is beating the competition hands down. When we run the exact same data in Canada, where our client is based, the client has the same metrics, but a few of the competitors numbers are higher. What could cause this variation? Both accounts are full versions, and not freebies.
Technical SEO | | Stevej240 -
Googlebot cannot access your site
"At the end of July I received a message in my Google webmaster tools saying "Googlebot can't access your site" We checked our robots.txt file and removed a line break in it, and then I had Google Fetch the file again. I have not received any more messages since then. When we created the website I wrote all of the content and optimized each page for about 1 local keyword. A few weeks after I checked my keywords and did have a few on the first page of google. Since then almost all of them have completely disappeared. Because we had not link building effort I would not expect to still be on the first page, but I should definitely be seeing them before the 5th or even 10th page of Google. The address is http://www.tile-pompanobeach.com I'm not sure if these horrible results have something to do with the message from Google or something else. The problem is this client now wants to sign a contract with us for SEO and I really have no Idea what happened and if I will be able to figure it out. The main keyword for my home page is tile pompano beach and I aslo was using Pompano Beach Tile store for the About page which was previously on the first page of Google. Does anyone have some input?
Technical SEO | | DTOSI0 -
See your sites Architecture
Does anybody know a problem where you can see how your internal linkings look to the search engines?
Technical SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0