Reverse 301 redirect - how will that work?
-
Hi
We have done some testing where we have changed our URL to a new name and 301 redirected the old to the new.
It has now been decided to go back to the old url again but is there an seo risk to this? Will all the inbound links that as redirected in the first change be lost or?
-
Recently I used 301s to redirect all my 404 errors on google web master and ended up with visibility zero on google search. I do not recommend 301. Not tested 302 but I think indexing the new link is much better than redirection in any way just to make sure you got juice passed thru.
-
Hindsight is 20/20 but I would've thought this was a classic example of when to use a 302 Redirect instead of a 301. As Matt Cutts says here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-discussing-302-redirects/
"By definition, those are redirects from one domain A.com to another domain B.com that are claimed to be temporary; that is, the web server on A.com could always change its mind and start showing content on A.com again."
This is an old link so let me give you his similar answer 4 yrs later:
"Eric Enge: Let’s briefly talk about 302 Redirects.
Matt Cutts: 302s are intended to be temporary. If you are only going to put something in place for a little amount of time, then 302s are perfectly appropriate to use. Typically, they wouldn't flow PageRank, but they can also be very useful. If a site is doing something for just a small amount of time, 302s can be a perfect case for that sort of situation."
http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml
So while I agree with David that you should be fine, if you test like this again, probably 302 it instead?
-
Hi David.
Thank you for the answer. The reason behind behind it was to see the effect on conversions if the name was more in tune with the product.
-
Obviously not a best practice, but should be fine.
What motiveated the change in the first place, then to reverse it?
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
-
Will I have duplicate content on my own website?
Hello Moz community, We are an agency providing services to various industries, and among them the hair salon industry. On our website, we have our different service pages in the main menu, as usual. These service pages are general information and apply to any industry.We also have a page on the website that is only intended for the hair salon industry. On this page, we would like to link new service pages: they will be the same services as our “general” services, but specialized for hair salons. My questions relate to duplicate content: Do we have to make the new individual service pages for hair salons with completely different text, even though it’s the same service, in order to avoid having duplicate content? Can we just change a few words from the “general service” page to specifically target hair salons, and somehow avoid Google seeing it as duplicate content? Reminder that these pages will be internal links inside of the hair salon industry page. Thank you in advance for your answers, Gaël
On-Page Optimization | | Gael_Regnault0 -
New jobboard: Can redirecting folder (site.com/jobboard) to subdomain (jobboard.site.com) hurt SEO?
Hi there, I'm planning to implement a jobboard on my website which needs to be installed on a subdomain (jobboard.site.com) but I'd really like to use site.com/jobboard for promoting this jobboard (jobboard collects external industry jobs). Are there any possible disadvantages when I set up a 301 redirect from jobboard.site.com to site.com/jobboard? Also: What if I want to move this jobboard to a unique domain one day (e.g. jobboard-industry-xy.com), Would that be tricky (as I'd basically have to redirect the folder-to-subdomain redirect to an external domain and therefore get a folder-to-subdomain-to-external-domain redirect...)? Cheers, Thomas
On-Page Optimization | | stl990 -
Will a on-page food/drink menu take away from my target keywords?
I am trying to rank for Chicago corporate events, so I am writing new content for a landing page. I have a description of our venue and why one should have a corporate event there, all content that is very rich in corporate event keywords. I then go on to say our drink packages and food packages. Overall, my actual keyword targeted content is 1/5 of the content and the other 4/5 is menu. At first I thought the more content the better, but now that I realize a lot fo the content is just saying different foods and alcohols I'm questioning my strategy. I'm going to do my metas and h1s and stuff with corporate event keywords. But is the menu going to get in the way of ranking for the corporate event keywords? Thanks in advance 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | howlusa0 -
Temporary Redirects
On my crawl report from SEOmoz, I have a lot of Temporary Redirects listed. The referring site is a product category page, but the URL listed is part of a shopping cart. For example: | http://www.adagiowaterfeatures.com/cart.php?action=add&product_id=496 | Tested true for a temporary redirect referred by this url: | http://www.adagiowaterfeatures.com/categories.php?category=Free-Standing-Water-Features/Harmony-River-Collection | Why does this occur and what can I do about it?
On-Page Optimization | | AdagioWaterFeatures0 -
Best way to do a 301 redirect when the incorrect page has rank and FB likes
Due to a site structural problem with our CMS we have alot of duplicate content pages (1 page, with multiple urls). We are in the process of setting up 301 redirects to correct the problem. Meanwhile; one of the pages with the "incorrect" URL happens to be the page google favors and also has about 100 FB "likes". The question is: Are we better off keeping the "incorrect" URL for that particular page and redirect the other url to it? Both have a page rank of 3. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | foodsleuth0 -
302 (Temporary Redirect) up and growing, how to fix?
Hi guys. On my website I have an action that will only perform if you are logged into your account, otherwise you are redirected to the login page causing a 302 redirection. When SEOmoz crawls my website, it gets all these redirections to the login page, but I really can't do much better so what is the best way of fixing this? I've thought of using rel="nofollow", but I want make sure this change will fix my issue, both with the SEOmoz crawler and any other search engine crawler. Thank you guys so much!
On-Page Optimization | | tanlup0 -
Is 302 Redirect a bad thing in SEO terms?
I am getting a lot of "302 (Temporary Redirects) = True" on many of my product URL's. What does it mean? Is it a bad thing to get these redirects? And how to fix them? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | SEOish0 -
Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?
Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy
On-Page Optimization | | MeghanPrudencio0