Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Why is Google not following a 301 redirect on the robots.txt file?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Why is Google not following a 301 redirect on the robots.txt file?

    Link Building
    2
    3
    8887
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • FRL
      FRL last edited by

      Hi Guys,

      I recently posted a question on the Google Webmasters Forum http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=683e71557db7fd54&hl=en&fid=683e71557db7fd540004a4b4add8cbb6 and didn't get a satisfactory feedback so I thought I will put this to the SEO gurus on here. Perhaps one of you guys might good buddies with Matt and might be able to ask him directly. I actually posted on Matt's blog but he hasn't got back to me.

      Basically we did a URL restructure for client and set up 301 redirects and saw a huge drop in rankings over time. The 301 redirects seem to work fine and have been tested by many many people. We suspected that google might be ignoring the 301 redirects or devaluing them and so I reviewed the server log to see what is happening when the googlebot crawls the site and it showed that on many occasions the googlebot did not reload the page after hitting a 301 redirect.

      Sure.. you might say it probably queues it or Google might just be checking that the 301 redirect is still in place but why check so often (with a few hours to a day on the same URL) it even skips a 301 redirect on the robots.txt file i.e. from http://clientsite.com/robots.txt to http://www.clientsite.com/robots.txt.  from non-www to www version.

      I don't think it is easy to dismiss the skipping of the robots.txt file - this 301 redirect should be loaded immediately to use the instructions the gooblebot requires to crawl the page.

      Any help will be appreciated. I can sent the server log to anyone personally but I am reluctant to post it on here.

      Regards,

      Zan

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • FRL
        FRL @blu42media last edited by

        Thanks John, I check the robots.txt redirect and it is redirecting fine from the non-www version to the www version. I also know that G is crawling the site because we can see requests by G in the server log. Also as with the case with the other 301 redirects there were cases G followed the 301 redirect on the robots.txt file but also many cases where it didnt.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • blu42media
          blu42media last edited by

          Hi Zan-

          Check out this thread:

          http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=23404

          Reading it through, I thought comments #8 and #11 might be of interest to you.

          -John

          FRL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          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.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • Leviiii

            slug Link redirect to subdomain?

            redirect subdomain link building

            Hi !
            Im Levi new here and new in the world of SEO, please dont judge if my questions are silly. Back on the days when the site was built we thought it is a good ideea to have subdomains that together with the domain name represent our main keywords.
            ex. https://stansted.tonorwich.uk, https://heathrow.tonorwich.uk, https://luton.tonorwich.uk, https://gatwick.tonorwich.uk. There is content on this subdomains, would it make any difference from SEO perspective if we create slugs that redirect to these subdomains? for example creating https://tonorwich.uk/taxi-minibus-vip-tesla-norwich-to-stansted that redirects to https://stansted.tonorwich.uk ? Or better create these slugs with slightly different content?
            Any ideeas would be appreciated.
            Thanks in advance!

            Link Building | | Leviiii
            0
          • FLLocal

            Are backlinks from the Episode Description field on Spotify "follow" or "no follow"?

            spotify backlinks

            Are backlinks from the Episode Description field on Spotify "follow" or "no follow"?!

            Link Building | | FLLocal
            0
          • AlexLenhoff

            Does an external link to an image file on my site help my SEO?

            I found a few websites that are displaying images from my site.  Curiously, they have also linked these images to the source image file on my website.  I found these because Moz showed these sites in my list of backlinks.  I assume that means it impacts my Domain Authority.  But does this actually help me in search engines since it's not linking to a page on my site?

            Link Building | | AlexLenhoff
            0
          • Total-Design-Shop

            What is the best way to remove a link that redirects to a spammy site?

            I've got a new client and I'm trying to clean up their backlinks. There are several links that all redirect to this spam site http://www.expert-lender.com. All of the websites appear to be real, i.e. http://www.sammorganhomes.com/ but the actual links i.e http://www.sammorganhomes.com/wp-fav/backup/supplement/semitruckleasing.html are in a sub-directory and redirect to the spam site. I don't know if these links were from the previous SEO company or if they paid someone to create these or if these sites have been hacked. Can anyone tell me what is going on here and what should I tell these site owners?

            Link Building | | Total-Design-Shop
            0
          • AdamThompson

            Will Google penalize for backlinks on non-indexed pages?

            Have a client who has a bunch of links from spammy sites that aren't even indexed by Google. Will Google penalize (i.e. Penguin) for backlinks from spammy sites that aren't indexed? I'm guessing "Yes, Google still crawls non-indexed sites and may penalize the sites linked to from the banned site." Anyone have any data or experience with this? Anyone have a non-indexed or banned site? Does Google still crawl it?

            Link Building | | AdamThompson
            0
          • DerekM88

            How does Google treat multiple backlinks on the same page?

            Hello mozCrew Just a quick yay or nay. We have an embeddable code on our site for customers who want to post our link on their website listed here: http://www.accupos.com/etc/embed-code-restaurants.php But in our link, there are actually 2 separate links, one branding link that says the name of our company, AccuPOS, and another link which targets a specific target keyword "Restaurant POS Software". My question is, does Google only give credit for the branding link, since it is listed FIRST? Or will we get double credit? Is this a good or bad practice, and what would you recommend? Thank you! Derek Moore

            Link Building | | DerekM88
            0
          • ProjectLabs

            Value of Link Redirect from Google News

            Some sites are linking to us with the URL from Google News instead of using a direct link. For example: "http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=ghjgjhggjhgkjghjg&url=http://www.oursite.com/awesome-news-010123/" Does this pass the same value as a normal link? I asked the publisher to replace the link with a normal link but they pushed back saying that the news URL is better.

            Link Building | | ProjectLabs
            0
          • photoseo1

            Need ideas to get do follow links from highly competative niche "wedding"

            I need to get high quality do-follow links and my target market/keyword is ‘Maui wedding’ and a few others. Because it is such a competitive market I am having a hard time getting links from local companies providing Maui Weddings (I know why because they are my competitors) and national companies sites aren't much help because they are trying to provide leads to their advertisers. I would like do-follow links from non-paid sources any ideas or resources you could help with would be much appreciated.  Thanks.

            Link Building | | photoseo1
            0

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.