Boatload of 301 Redirects Question
-
We have a client that came to us and they recently did a site makeover. Previously they had all their pages in root directory including 75+ spammy article pages. On their makeover, they moved all the article pages into a directory and added 301 redirects. In going over their site we noticed they have redundant articles, like an article on blue-marble-article.htm and blue-marbles-article.htm Playing on singular and plural with dulpicate content for most part with exception to making it plural.
If they have 75 articles, Id say 1/3 are actually somewhat original content. I would like to 301 redirect 2/3's of the articles to better re-written article pages but that would add a whole lot more 301 redirects.
We would then have a 301 redirect from root directory to article directory, then another 301 redirect from spam article to new re-written article.
- My question is, would this be too many redirects for googlebot to sort through and would it be too confusing or send bad signals?
- Or should I create a new directory with all good articles and just redirect the entire old articles directory to the new one?
- Or just delete the redirects and old spammy directory and let those fall on a 404 error page.
Id hate to lose 50-75 pages but I think its in fact those spammy pages that could be why the site fell from top of first page google to third page and now 10th page in a years time.
I know, Im confused just typing this out. Hope it makes sense for some good feedback and advise. Thanks.
-
If the pages have traffic, rankings, etc. then its better to have a relevant one to one redirect instead of letting them 404. Its always better to 301 redirect directly to the relevant page instead of having a chain of redirects to redirects. Having 75 new redirects won't slow down googlebot. It can handle quite a lot.
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
-
How do I carry out a redirect? Is there a code I need to use?
How do I carry out a redirect? Is there a code I need to use? Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | laurentjb0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
Canonical Question For Different Languages
My client has a site that supports different languages in the following structure: www.domain.com - English version www.domain.com/IT - Italian version www.domain/DE - German version etc.... I have set the languages up within Webmaster Tools but do I need to set up the canonical tag for all internal pages as they are basically the same but just in a different language i.e. www.domain.com/index.php is the same as www.domain.com/DE/index.php but in a different language. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bigfootdigital0 -
Redirecting https pages
If I add 301 redirects from the https versions of the root domain to the http:www.website.com (canonical version), will this prevent users from being able to access the https version? I believe the https version is only accessed once users log into the site. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | HiddenPeak0 -
Questions About My Report
Hi, I have a website that aggregates NFL analysis (not news). I write 3-5 line summaries about each article I link, so there is a pretty good amount of daily content. Here's the site: http://www.profootballhotreads.com/ After I received my initial report, there were several issues, and I just wanted to get some thoughts on them. Some of these might be related to the aggregate nature, some might be not a concern, but I want to know which ones I should really worry about. Too many links. My main page is a continuously running scroll of links, so obviously this is going to be tough to accommodate. I know this makes each link less "valuable," but does it actually affect my site in any way? I don't really have links to my site on the page other than in the menu, which I assume would be scrolled first. meta description on tag pages. For site design reasons, I have several "pages" that are actually tag collection pages rather than unique pages. For example, each team's page is simply a collection of anything tagged with that team. So, I don't know if I can provide a meta description for those pages without making that the default meta description for any post with that tag. I supposedly have tons of duplicate pages but when I go to those pages, I don't see it. Webmasters said I only had one duplicate. Not sure what's going on. I'm thinking anytime I update a post, it is reading it as two different posts even though only one post exists at a time on the site. I have tons of duplicate page titles. Basically, I have tons of pages on my main page because after a certain amount of posts, it goes to a "new" page, even though it's just a continuation. So, I have Main page 1, Main Page 2, etc with the same title and meta descriptions. I don't think this is a concern, is it? Thanks for anyone who might be able to help. Let me know if there are more questions. Jason
On-Page Optimization | | JMay0 -
Newbie with a few questions
Hi! First post here. Would be great if someone could help me out with a few questions: 1. When I search a brand-name, there are 6 pages in 2 columns listed right below the brand in the SERPS. Is it possible to choose which pages in the "category list" that Google shows? 2. From what I've understood, the keywords being included early in the content is of much higher importance than using them in a perfectly structured tag hierarchy. Instead of using a hierarchy like this: I could use something like this (which reads much better): ****Would this make any difference? 3. My category pages show up in the search listings. Is this a bad thing? Should I nofollow or noindex? 4. Category and author pages triggers duplicate content in seomoz. Should I do anything about it? Should i make all the excerpts unique to avoid this? 4. Is the title tag recommendation of 66 characters with or without the brand name? Am I good as long as the post part of the title is less than 66? Remove the brand name from the title all together?****
On-Page Optimization | | mathiasppc0 -
301 redirects from several sub-pages to one sub-page
Hi! I have 14 sub-pages i deleted earlier today. But ofcourse Google can still find them, and gives everyone that gives them a go a 404 error. I have come to the understading that this wil hurt the rest of my site, at least as long as Google have them indexed. These sub-pages lies in 3 different folders, and i want to redirect them to a sub-page in a folder number 4. I have already an htaccess file, but i just simply cant get it to work! It is the same file as i use for redirecting trafic from mydomain.no to www.mydomain.no, and i have tried every kind of variation i can think of with the sub-pages. Has anyone perhaps had the same problem before, or for any other reason has the solution, and can help me with how to compose the htaccess file? 🙂 You have to excuse me if i'm using the wrong terms, missing something i should have seen under water while wearing a blindfold, or i am misspelling anything. I am neither very experienced with anything surrounding seo or anything else that has with internet to do, nor am i from an englishspeaking country. Hope someone here can light up my path 🙂 Thats at least something you can say in norwegian...
On-Page Optimization | | MarieA1