Can I remove 301 redirects after some time?

[Veva]

Hello,

We have an very large number of 301 redirects on our site and would like to find a way to remove some of them.

Is there a time frame after which Google does not need a 301 any more? For example if A is 301 redirected to B, does Google know after a while not to serve A any more, and replaces any requests for A with B?

How about any links that go to A?

Or: Is the only option to have all links that pointed to A point to B and then the 301 can be removed after some time?

Thank you for you you help!

[Veva]

Thank you both for your answers, I really appreciate, they are very helpful!

[Adam.Whittles]

Why do you think there are too many 301 redirects? There is no limit to how many 301 redirects you can have and I'm not sure why you think removing them will 'ease download times'.

Your concern about the links is correct. If you remove the 301s then you lose the value that these links are passing through the redirect.

I'd love to know who these 'experts' are because I've never heard of that. Sounds completely made up and, to my knowledge, is incorrect.

I would suggest you take a look at Google's explanation about 301 redirects as it could prove informative to you.

[Veva]

Thank you for your reply.

We want to get rid of the 301s as there are just too many. Our site was not set up with lots of strategy, and it takes hundresds of 301's to consolidate.

The reason to get rif of them is to ease management, and to ease download time.

My concern is not only the 404s it is the links that go to the pages that where 301.

I have heard from some experts that it is ok to remove the 301s as once Google realizes one page is permanently redirected to another it keeps a recod to it and the 301 i sno longer needed. I am not sure that is correct.

Thank you!

[Adam.Whittles]

Streamline is right that you should keep the 301 redirects in place so that any links pointing to the old pages pass value through the redirect to the new pages.

Is there a time frame after which Google does not need a 301 any more? For example if A is 301 redirected to B, does Google know after a while not to serve A any more, and replaces any requests for A with B?

Simply put, no. If you remove the 301 redirect then any requests for page A will return page A and not B.

How about any links that go to A?

These links will now be passing all their value to page A.

Or: Is the only option to have all links that pointed to A point to B and then the 301 can be removed after some time?

If it is possible for you to change all links that point to A, to then point to B, then maybe. However, it is very unlikely you will be able to do this and it will be extremely time consuming.

In short, your best option is to leave the 301 redirects in place as best SEO practice.

[StreamlineMetrics]

May I ask why you wish to remove the redirects? If other sites are linking to any of your old pages, then you should leave the 301 redirects in place since the search engines will likely crawl those links only to discover a 404 page.

Otherwise, you could go ahead and try removing the 301 redirects and monitor Google Webmaster Tools to see if Google encounters any 404 pages. If you do see the 404s start increasing, then you'll know that you should probably put the 301 redirects back in place.