How does the Google Treat 301 Redirects?
-
Hi,
My website was one of many that dropped in rankings this last Friday, The company that i outsourced my SEO 4 months ago did a bad job. Now i'm doing everything my self to recover, so i was thinking getting a new hosting, duplicate the website with a same content (i have original quality content) and 301 my old domain to new one? How long can it last with Google? Can penalties be passed via 301 redirects ?
Looking forward to your help.
-
You need to think about whether your site has been hit with a manual penalty or an algorithm penalty. If you have had no messages in WMT then it is probably an algorithm penalty. Panda is now part of all algorithm changes so you may have been hit by that.
One of our testing sites got hit by Penguin in May and we decided to test out if a 301 to a new website would work...it didnt!! It took just over 5 weeks for Google to catch up and the site lost all its rankings again. I was actually surprised it took that long to be honest, Google's algorithm is too smart for that so I would advise trying to fix any problems before you give up and start a new website.
Penalties will last as long as you have the problem. The issue here is, if it is an algorithm change then it is harder to figure out what is wrong. Whilst a manual penalty is worse, at least you know what to do in order to fix the problem. You need to look at any duplicate content issues you may have and if that is all ok then look deep into your backlink profile because it must be 1 or the other. If you show us your URL then maybe one of us could take a quick look and give you some more info.
-
Hi,
Everything Sharia says is correct in terms of being sure you know what you are dealing with. Assuming that your drop in rankings/traffic is related to the reported penguin update last weekend and again assuming that the bad job your seo firm did was related to building loads of crappy links to your site then I would suggest taking a deep breath and start looking for more information on penguin/penguin recovery. There is lots of info on this on the qa and the blogs, for example:
http://moz.com/blog/the-difference-between-penguin-and-an-unnatural-links-penalty-and-some-info-on-panda-too
http://moz.com/ugc/what-a-penguin-recovery-looks-likeA short answer to your question is that there seem to be mixed thoughts on using 301s to try and 'get out' of a penguin related drop in rankings. Personally I think the balance of opinion points towards 301s being either a very short term tactic or else just passing the problem on to the new page/domain. So I would not jump into the 301 to a new domain route without thinking things through (a lot!). A couple more relevant posts:
http://moz.com/blog/save-your-website-with-redirects
http://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool -
Do you have more information about what went wrong? I think the first step would be an in depth analysis to try and discover why your ratings went down. Did they just fall for the first time last Friday; did you get any penalty notifications; was it four months ago they started falling? Why do you say your SEO company did a bad job - how?
There are many reasons a site can fall in the SERPs, and they aren't all penalty related. And, it is possible to recover from some penalties. I've seen sites fall after algorithm changes even when a site has been doing everything correctly. Sometimes volatility is temporary. Google Local hit a couple of our clients pretty hard just because they no longer ranked across the county, a big disappointment since we'd successfully put a lot of quality work into getting them to the top.
Anyway, if you give more information, it will be easier for the heads here to give you good answers.
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
-
Inbound Links - Redirect, Leave Alone, etc
Hi, I recently download the inbound links report for my client to look for some opportunities. When they switched to our platform a couple years ago, the format of some of their webpages change, so a number of these inbound links are going to an error page and should be redirected. However, some of these are spammy. In that case, someone recommended to me to disavow them but still redirect anyway. In other cases, some were "last seen" a year or two ago, so when I try to go to the URL the link is coming from, I also get an error page. Should I bother to redirect in these cases? Should I disavow in both cases? Or leave them alone? Thanks for any input!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac261 -
Ranking Fluctuation on "Canvas Prints" keyword in google.co.uk
Hello Moz We are struggling for "canvas prints" ranking in google.co.uk since last 2 years. every time in SERP my webpage has been changed. i want to rank this URL on this particular keyword - "canvas prints" Can you tell me why my page has been fluctuate every time in SERP's. mtwpvf
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CommercePundit1 -
Hacked Websites (Doorways) Ranking First Page of Google
Hello Moz community! I could really use your help with some suggestions here with some recent changes I've noticed in the Google serps for terms I've been currently working on. Currently one of the projects I am working on is for an online pharmacy and noticed that the SERPs are being now taken up by hacked websites which look like doorways to 301 redirect to an online pharmacy the hacker wants the traffic to go to. Seems like they may be wordpress sites that are hacked and have unrelated content on their websites compared to online pharmacies. We've submitted these issues as spam to Google and within chrome as well but haven't heard back. When searching terms like "Canadian Pharmacy Viagra" and other similar terms we see this issue. Any other recommendations on how we can fix this issue? Thanks for your time and attached is a screenshot of the results we are seeing for one of our searches. 1Orus
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | monarkg0 -
Is this thumbtack.com pop-up modal allowed by Google?
When you click on a Thumbtack organic result, there's a pop-up modal on the landing page. Is this allowed by Google? E.g. Go to these SERPS and click on the first Thumbtack result. The landing page has this modal appear. Is this likely to hurt their rankings?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RealSelf1 -
What is the best way to eliminate ghost traffic from Google Analytics?
Hey Mozzers, I just wanted to see how you all deal with eliminating Google ghost traffic sources from Google. I tried setting up a RegEx 'include' list before, but it seemed as though I was blocking potential traffic sources when I did as much (I'm probably missing something here). Anyway, I'm interested to read how you all have dealt with this issue in the past, thanks for reading!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage0 -
Have just submitted Disavow file to Google: Shall I wait until after they have removed bad links to start new content lead SEO campaign?
Hi guys, I am currently conducting some SEO work for a client. Their previous SEO company had built a lot of low quality/spam links to their site and as a result their rankings and traffic have dropped dramatically. I have analysed their current link profile, and have submitted the spammiest domains to Google via the Disavow tool. The question I had was.. Do I wait until Google removes the spam links that I have submitted, and then start the new content based SEO campaign. Or would it be okay to start the content based SEO campaign now, even though the current spam links havent been removed yet.. Look forward to your replies on this...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sanj50500 -
Google places VS position one ranking above the places.
Hi Guys, Will creating a new Google places listing for a business have any effect their current position one spot for their major geo location keyword? I.e restaurants perth - say they are ranking no 1 above all the places listings if they set up a places listing would they lose that position and merge with all the other places accounts? Or would they have that listing as well as the places listing? I have been advised it could be detrimental to set up the places account if this is the case does anyone know any ways around this issue as the business really needs a places page for google maps etc. Appreciate some guidance Thanks. BC
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Bodie0