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.
Thousands of 301 redirections - .htaccess alternatives?
-
Hi guys,
I just want to ask if there are other possible issues/problems (other than server load) once we implement 301 redirections for 10,000+ URLs using .htaccess. Are there other alternatives?
-
Thank you for your answer ! I will share it with our IT team.
-
Why don't you just have a VPS server with NGINX the stream handler/reverse proxy for your IIS web server?
- https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-nginx-load-balancing
- http://www.iborgelt.com/windows-home-server-behind-nginx-reverse-proxy/
You're just using the VPS as an interface to handle your redirects and for $5 a month. You can't beat it. Im sure if your IT department googles: nginx reverse proxy iis they will get the idea.
-
Hi guys, I have a similar problem, but on IIS7. Our IT department says our 301 redirections file is at it's max size in the webconfig. They could increase the limit, but says it will impact page load speed negatively. What's the impact on page speed of having 5000 to 10000 urls in the rewrite map ?
Also, they're also looking at a solution to look at the redirections only when the site gives a 404, so it would hit 404, then 301, then 200. I am a little scared of this SEO wize. Would it be a problem?
Thanks !
-
Putting aside server load / config issues, and from the pure SEO point of view.
No, you shouldn't have any major issues with that many 301s. However, what you might find is that depending on the size of your site and the frequency of Googlebots visits that some of these pages take a long time (months) to drop out of the index and be replaced by their newer alternatives. This normally isn't cause for alarm.
In some instances you might end up with pages that now have now links to them (as their parent categories were all redirected also) and so seem to get stuck and never get recrawled by Google to update. In a couple of instances I have had success using XML sitemap files that just include these 'blocked' pages (the old URLs still in the index) to prompt Google to recrawl them.
Also there is Google Webmaster Tools feature to 'crawl as Googlebot' which then prompts you to 'submit to index' which you can use to prompt recrawls on a per-page basis (but you have credits here, so should only be for the more important pages).
Best of luck!
-
The main benefit of this would be in reducing server load / response time, and potentially in maintainability of the server config.
The most important aspect of this side of thing would be based on how many separate rules you have in your .htaccess file for those 10,000 redirects.
-
Hi Kevin,
What's the difference of this method to the standard 301 redirection using .htaccess?
-
Do you guys have a step-by-step guide in implementing 301 redirection using this httpd main server config file?
-
Well, if you're on a VPS/Dedicated Machine. - I would take a look at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/rewrite/rewritemap.html
RewriteMap has 0 effect on the load time like if you were to have the same in .htaccess it will eat those redirect rules. Remember 301s cache in the browser so when you're testing have them all 302s until you're happy and then watch your rewrite log when you launch. If you need help let us know.
This does take some knowhow and learning but you should be able to get this done in a few days. ( testing, reading documentation )
-
Do you have access to the httpd main server config file? If so, please read Apache HTTP Server Tutorial: .htaccess files.
".htaccess files should be used in a case where the content providers need to make configuration changes to the server on a per-directory basis, but do not have root access on the server system. In the event that the server administrator is not willing to make frequent configuration changes, it might be desirable to permit individual users to make these changes in .htaccess files for themselves. This is particularly true, for example, in cases where ISPs are hosting multiple user sites on a single machine, and want their users to be able to alter their configuration.
However, in general, use of .htaccess files should be avoided when possible. Any configuration that you would consider putting in a .htaccess file, can just as effectively be made in a <directory>section in your main server configuration file."</directory>
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
-
Spam Score & Redirecting Inbound Links
Hi, I recently downloaded a spreadsheet of inbound links to my client sites and am trying to 301 redirect the ones that are formatted incorrectly or just bad links in general (they all link to the site domain, but they used to have differently formatted urls on their old site, or the link URL in general has strange stuff on it). My question is, should I even bother redirecting these links if their spam score is a little high (i.e. 20-40%)? it already links to the existing domain, just with a differently formatted URL. I just want to make sure it goes to a valid URL on the site, but I don't want to redirect to a valid URL if it's going to harm the client's SEO. Also not sure what to do about the links with the --% spam score. I really appreciate any input as I don't have a lot of experience with how to deal with spammy links.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac260 -
New Flurry of thousands of bad links from 3 Spammy websites. Disavow?
I also discovered that a website www.prlog.ru put 32 links to my website. It is a russian site. It has a 32% spam score. Is that high? I think I need to disavow. Another spammy website link has spam score of 16% with with several thousand links. I added one link to the site medexplorer.com 6 years ago and it was fine. Now it has thousands of links. Should I disavow all three?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Is domain redirection a good method for SEO?
I have a question and need suggestion from you guys. I’ve searched for my question on Google but don’t get exact information what I need. Maybe I can’t search perfectly.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kamishah
Let me explain my confusion:
I’ve checked backlink profile of a website. He is not using his main domain while doing comment backlink. He put his another domain while doing comment backlink. The another domain redirect to the main domain. Why he use another domain while doing comment backlink?
Is it helpful to get better rank on Google? For example: My Main Domain = solutionfall.com
Another Domain= xyz.com (It redirect to solutionfall.com)
He just uses xyz.com while doing comment backlink. Thank You so much1 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Can I 301 redirect old URLs to staging URLs (ex. staging.newdomain.com) for testing?
I will temporarily remove a few pages from my old website and redirect them to a new domain but in staging domain. Once the redirection is successful, I will remove the redirection rules in my .htaccess and get the removed pages back to live. Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow20130 -
Pages linked with Spam been 301 redirected to 404\. Is it ok
Pl suggest, some pages having some spam links pointed to those pages are been redirected to 404 error page (through 301 redirect) - as removing them manually was not possible due to part of core component of cms and many other coding issue, the only way as advised by developer was making 301 redirect to 404 page. Does by redirecting these pages to 404 page using 301 redirect, will nullify all negative or spam links pointing to them and eventually will remove the resulting spam impact on the site too. Many Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Modi0 -
Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?
I had a new site that was ranking on the first page for 5 keywords. My site was hacked recently and I went through a lot of trouble to restore it. Last night, I discovered that my site was nowhere to be found but when i searched site: mysite.com, it was still ranking which means it was not penalized. I discovered the issue to be a .htaccess and it have been resolved. My question is now that the .htaccess issue is resolved , will my site be restored back to the first page? Is there additional things that i should do? I have notified google by submitting my site
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | semoney0