Redirect 1 specific link from a referrer, wise move?
-
This might be a bit of a complex question as it has many implications and I’d really appreciate some expert advice.
I have a client who has one specific .gov link which is absolutely amazing. It doesn’t have any anchor text and goes straight to the homepage. However it drives quite a lot of revenue! It’s lovely as SEO’s to think of links actually driving revenue rather than assisting rankings of course.
Over the last 30 days this single govt. link has driven:
418 clicks, 61 conversions, $7,500 revenue
Not bad I hear you say! J
I really want to extract maximum value from this and I’ sure it would perform far better if it went to a really tightly focused landing page rather than the homepage. It really is hyper-targeted buyer traffic (as the stats show) but could perform even better in my opinion.
I can’t change the link, that’s not possible unfortunately. However I can do some server side stuff to redirect traffic from just this link to a desired new page.
However, what are the SEO implications of this in the opinion of some of the experts here?
Obviously the link itself is valuable from an SEO perspective and I don’t want to lose that. I’m not sure how Google would treat the link if this were to be done.
Also I really want to A/B test the homepage versus a landing page to ensure that it really does give an improvement. I’m not even sure how to achieve that given the difficulty in this situation.
Any advice would really be useful!
Thanks J
-
Exactly, it would mean that you're minimizing the risk of having the site penalised as well. Let me know how it goes!
-
Thanks Sebastian.
Yes I already have VWO code installed on the clients site so that's good news. I didn't realise I could set up a test for just traffic from a specific referrer URL.
So basically I can split test the homepage versus a completely new landing page in VWO to prove the concept. Thanks!
-
Thanks yes, i'm only investigating options right now of course.
As you say it's a very valuable link (I wish i had one of those!).
I'm certainly not going to make major changes until more research is done. However if we could double the conversion rate (which I think is possible in this case), it would really be a big win!
-
Hi Harvey,
Good job on the gov link
Answering your A/B test, although there are a few posts out there that have shown a reduction in visibility as a result of cloaking etc, but assuming you correctly implement the test there shouldn't be an issue.
I know most multivariate testers offer a/b testing based on referral URL so that shouldn't have an effect on the link or Google's opinion of it.
Ultimately Google engages in the same kind of tests and if you visit the Google homepage in I.E you get a little box asking you to install Chrome, so a minor test like this shouldn't have any negative implications.
VisualWebsiteOptimizer definitely offers referal URL testing and I believe Optimizely does as well - if you're a pro member you can get 3 months free of VWO or 25% off Optimizely packages
-
Not an expert here but redirects are never as good as straight forward links IMO.
In your position I would probably make the landing page more easily accessible from the top of the homepage and direct users to visit the page that way.
It's a very valuable link, so probably best not to test the waters when they are unknown.
Just my opinion of course and one of the ways we learn about seo is of course to experiment, but do consider all aspects before making any redirect changes, pros/cons etc.
All the best!
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
-
Temporarily redirecting a small website to a specific url of another website
Hi, I would like to redirect a small website that contains info about a specific project temporarily to a specific url about this project on my main website. Reason for this is that the small website doesn't contain accurate info anymore. We will adapt the content in the next few weeks and then remove the redirect again. Should I set up a 301 or a 302? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C1 -
Should I do a redirect
Hello, I am building a new website with a new web address for subpages. The domain name stays the same. I am wondering if I should do redirect to the few pages that have an outside link going to them. I noticed all my subpage that don't have any external link have an authority of 18. I only have 1 subpage that has 2 external links and 1 of them has a spam score of 32 and then other one of 1. My website is about a 100 pages. What should I do for my subpages redirect , not redirect, redirect only the ones that have external links ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
If I nofollow outbound external links to minimize link juice loss > is it a good/bad thing?
OK, imagine you have a blog, and you want to make each blog post authoritative so you link out to authority relevant websites for reference. In this case it is two external links per blog post, one to an authority website for reference and one to flickr for photo credit. And one internal link to another part of the website like the buy-now page or a related internal blog post. Now tell me if this is a good or bad idea. What if you nofollow the external links and leave the internal link untouched so all internal links are dofollow. The thinking is this minimizes loss of link juice from external links and keeps it flowing through internal links to pages within the website. Would it be a good idea to lay off the nofollow tag and leave all as do follow? or would this be a good way to link out to authority sites but keep the link juice internal? Your thoughts are welcome. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rich_Coffman0 -
Is it safe to 301 redirect old domain to new domain after a manual unnatural links penalty?
I have recently taken on a client that has been manually penalised for spammy link building by two previous SEOs. Having just read this excellent discussion, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lifting-a-manual-penalty-given-by-google-personal-experience I am weighing up the odds of whether it's better to cut losses and recommend moving domains. I had thought under these circumstances it was important not to 301 the old domain to the new domain but the author (Lewis Sellers) comments on 3/4/13 that he is aware of forwards having been implemented without transferring the penalty to the new domain. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lifting-a-manual-penalty-given-by-google-personal-experience#jtc216689 Is it safe to 301? What's the latest thinking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ewan.Kennedy0 -
Help needed regarding 1:1 Redirection
Hi all, We are currently working on a very large site having approximately 5000+ pages and its going to be 301 redirected to a new domain. For this we need to redirect each and every page on a 1:1 basis as mentioned in the Webmaster Central guide. Now the site is in flt file and not in CMS and is becoming very tough to set manually redirection for these pages. The site is hosted in a Windows server and using IIS web config file. Now any help regarding any automated or easy way to do the 1:1 redirection will be appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ITRIX0 -
How quickly should you aquire links?
Hi Guys, How often should you aquire links without getting into trouble with Goolge? Should you aqure a linka day? Or a link every 2 days? What should it be? Thanks guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Questions about 301 Redirects
I have about 10 - 15 URLs that are redirecting to http://www.domainname.comwww.domainname.com/. (which is an invalid URL)The website is on a Joomla platform. Does anyone know how I can fix this? I can't figure out where the problem is coming from.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnParker27920 -
Redirect
Hi, I have one domain which was redirected today (the main domain,root) was redirected to a new subdomain of the main root domain.site was ranking for several keywords and had an authority of 35 on root domain. Site after 12 hours disappeared from google results.dont even rank for its brand name. What will happened to the new subdomain? Will rank again? Have the same keywords plus some more.old keywords are 3 and new are 2. For the old keywords on page optimization gets a c , and for the new a+c. For the new keywords don't have backlinks at all. When my site will start to rank for its old keywords? How long will be down ? Will pass the link juice and authority? If yes how soon ? Because I will loose to much money if stay longer like 1-2 weeks down. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nyanainc0