Can I Get Penalized for 301 Redirects (Too Many or In Any Scenario)?
-
A client of ours owns several domain names that are keyword similar to the domain they actually use to run their site.
They are asking us if we should 301 redirect all of these websites to the domain they use.
However, I don't want this to work against them and their site get penalized later for this. I have heard buying out competitors and redirecting their domain to yours is frowned upon and penalized when you get caught (they did not do this). We are also wondering if there is a limit as to how many domains you can 301 redirect and what type (keyword similar, misspellings, .net's, etc.) and if you are penalized after too many (i.e. >50).
All of the domains in question are keyword/brand name similar only and do not exist as actual websites.
We just want to do the right thing.
Thank you for your help.
-
Thanks! Will go with it. Worth the try.
Thank you! Love this community thing.
-
Again if there is no website on the domain name then it does not matter what the domain name is that you redirect, so if there is no website on the domain name
Plumbers.com could be pointed at fishing.com and there would be no problems
Does this help?
Sean
-
That is correct. They don't exist as websites. We just don't want to get penalized for doing so. Basically after that, if anyone types in these domains, they'll go to ours. Wondering if I should be wary but it sounds like you said it's ok.
The brand related ones seem fine but keyword?
I.e.: if the site is GoBig.com then .net & org & GoBigg should be fine.
But (ie the site is about adding on to your house via this contractor (example) and you redirect contractor.com to it and houseadditions.com are you going to get penalized?
Thanks!
-
Hi
When you say "All of the domains in question are keyword/brand name similar only and do not exist as actual websites." does this mean they are just registered domain names rather than websites?
If that is the case then you do not need to do a 301 redirect you just point the nameservers to the new site rather than where they are at the moment and I do not think there is a limit to the number you can do this for.
Hope this helps
Sean
-
I also forgot to mention, I'd heavily assume a high number would be ok, because of instances like working on a store that contains 1000's of products and if a URL rewrite or something similar happens, all these need to be connected to the right place!
-
I think the number isn't important, if you have 1000 and every single one points to a relevant point, close to what they were trying to find- then there is absolutely no problem!
Just watch they don't all go to the homepage or are trying to use them to an SEO advantage etc; thats not what they're for and you will get penalised for that.
I've just done about 100 on a client's store recently and after a couple of weeks their rankings improved incredibly! they were getting hit with so many 404s etc
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
-
Ranking for non-existing content which is 301 redirected
Hey there, In the beginning of this year I've made complete site migration from Dutch language to English. All the old Dutch URL's were 301 redirected to the English versions. I naturally lost rankings for all Dutch keywords during the next month. On the website there is no Dutch content anymore. But what happened now is that five months later the website started to rank for the Dutch keywords again. The page snippets in SERP are in English but the URL's shown are in Dutch (ending with .nl) and whenever a user clicks on the snippet he/she gets 301 to the correct English version. Any ideas what could be the reason for re-ranking of non-existing pages which gets 301 in SERP?
Technical SEO | | benesmartin0 -
Why is Coyscape showing content duplication error even after implementing 301 redirect ?
We are maintaining the corporate website of one of our prestigious clients "FineTech Toolings" (http://www.finetechtoolings.in). Recently I had raised a question regarding "2 websites running paralley in 2 diferent domains, i.e. 1 organisation having 2 different websites on 2 different domains". Recently my domain changed from http://www.finetechtoolings.co.in to http://www.finetechtoolings.in via 301 redirect, but still I am facing content duplication issue as per Copyscape. Hence I am having a small doubt regarding the same. Please note the following question very carefully and provide me the exact problem and the solution for the same: Even though I have implemented 301 redirect (http://www.finetechtoolings.co.in is redirected to http://www.finetechtoolings.in), which is completely ok as per the SEO rules, why is copyscape still showing that duplicate content exists in the former website? I think I am clear enough with my question.
Technical SEO | | KDKini0 -
Redirect URLS with 301 twice
Hello, I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this. We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND. However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result. The problems I see are these unless he redirects again: The new simplified URLS have to start from scratch to rank 2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page. I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these: Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice? If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Site Penalized - 301 Redirect Question
Hello, We have a website that was penalized roughly two years by Google for "Unnatural Links"... We are experiencing a lot of problems with this site, completely unrelated to the penalty or SERPS, and we're debating doing a 301 Re-direct to another site we own that is totally clean and has no "Unnatural Links". If we do a 301 from the penalized site to our alternative website, will there be any cross-contamination? Will the penalty carry over to our other site? Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
How does this rank? - a page that is 301 redirected
How does a 301ed page rank in google? In google I searched for" ikea.ca" which is set up as a 301 redirect to www.ikea.com/ca/en and was surprised to see the url --> www.ikea.ca actually ranking. IKEA Canada <cite>ikea.ca/</cite>IKEA Featuring Scandinavian modern style furniture and accessories. Include storage options, lighting, decor products, kitchen appliances and beds. Bedroom - Kitchen - Living Room - IKEA North York
Technical SEO | | Morris770 -
301 redirect or 302
A client of mine has an international company named www.taxglobalizers.com if you come from Holland they 302 redirect you to the www.taxglobalizers.com/en version of the site and if you come from Holland they redirect with a 302 to www.taxglobalizers.com/nl version. I think it is best to change this in a 301 redirect. Am i correct in this? Kind Regards, Ruud
Technical SEO | | RuudHeijnen0 -
302 or 301 redirect to https ?
I am redirecting whole site to https. Is there a difference between 302 or 301 redirect for seo? Site never been indexed. Planning to do that with .htaccess command RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
Technical SEO | | Kotkov
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L] There are plenty of ways http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/ssl-example-usage-in-htaccess.html Which way would be the best? Thanks is advance0 -
During a site platform transition, should we 301 redirect all URLs or only those with inbound links?
We have an ecommerce client transitioning to a new platform. Due to the nature of the platform, all the pages will have different URLs. There are between 7000-8000 total pages on the website. We wrote 301 redirects for all URLs which are showing inbound links. Unfortunately, automating this process is pretty difficult and hand writing URLs for 8000 links is unfeasible. Is it worth investing the time to 301 redirect all 8000 URLs, or are we safe with only doing those with inbound links? One other option would be to implement a generic redirect for all the rest of the old URLs that sends them to the homepage. Would this be a good compromise?
Technical SEO | | outofboundsdigital0
