Instead of a 301, my client uses a 302 to custom 404
-
I've found about 900 instances of decommissioned pages being redirected via 302 to a 404 custom page, even when there's a comparable page elsewhere on the site or on a new subdomain.
My recommendation would be to always do a 301 from the legacy page to the new page, but since they're are so many instances of this 302->404 it seems to be standard operating procedure by the dev team.
Given that at least one of these pages has links coming from 48 root domains, wouldn't it obviously be much better to 301 redirect it to pass along that equity? I don't get why the developers are doing this, and I have to build a strong case about what they're losing with this 302->404 protocol.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on WHY the dev team has settled on this solution, in addition to what suffers as a result. I think I know, but would love some more expert input.
-
Of course they aren't seeing a drop in traffic to comparable pages. Those pages are fighting under their own steam. If you send a customer/prospect to the right page, the first time, they'll likely see an increase in traffic.
It sounds like they're talking about 'what is' rather than 'what could be', which in our opinion is likely better. So I guess you could make the business case that incoming referrals are bouncing when they could be buying. Hopefully there's tracking code of some sort on the faux 404 page.
-
Travis, thanks - in addition to my comment to Wiqas, I think that the usability is a big point to make. See, the analysts will come back to me and say, "we're not seeing a drop in any traffic to comparable pages." I'm going to do an in-depth look into Page Authority for a related report, but I agree 100% on the usability point. We do have comparable pages...why the heck wouldn't we 301? Esp. when external sites are still occasionally use the legacy URL....
Thx.
-
Thanks - yea, and it's funny because most of the analysts and devs I talk to say, "oh, 302 is just as good as 301, these days." Everything else I read runs contrary to that. Thanks Wiqas.
-
Hey,
302 redirect is mostly used for temporary situations and it fits to very few situations. 302 redirect doesn't pass link juice to pointing URL.
Dev Team seems to be conservative in approach. This approach was widely used but it's not recommended now. I recommend 301 Redirect even I don't know exact situation.
You can get more guidance about redirects here: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
I hope, this will help!
Regards
-
I would imagine they took that route because it's fast/easy. I would find using a site that cares that little about usability more than a little annoying. Imagine hitting page after page of 'whoops' pages. It's not something anyone wants to do.
There should be 301s put in place for relevant pages with good/clean links. Then they should 410 unwanted pages. Both the search engines and site visitors win.
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
-
Unsolved Temporary redirect from 302 to 301 for PNG File?
#302HTTP #temporaryredirect
Technical SEO | | Damian_Ed 0
Hi everyone, Recently I have faced a crawl issue with my media images on website. For example this page url https://intreface.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Horion-screen-side-2.png has 302 HTTP Status and the recommendation is to change it 301. I have read the article on temporary redirections here:
https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection?_ga=2.45324708.1293586627.1702571936-916254120.1702571936
but its not written here how to redirect in my HTML 1 image url not the landing page.
Screenshot 2023-12-15 at 11.02.40.png
I have messaged to MOZ Support but they recommended to go for the MOZ Community!
Screenshot 2023-12-15 at 11.06.02.png Could you assist me wit this issue please? I can reach HTTML of the necessary page and change what I need for permanent redirection but firstly I need to understand how to do that correctly.0 -
301 or 302 or leave at 410
I have a client who manages vacation rental properties and those properties get links. If an owner pulls their property off the rental market the current status given is a 410 which I instinctively want turned into a 301. The problem is, often those properties come back online with the same URL so the question is, when a 301 is turned into a 200 - has anyone noticed a significant delay in time for that page to rank?I know technically it should probably be a 410 or maybe a 302 but ... you know ... the link weight. 🙂
Technical SEO | | BeanstalkIM1 -
302 redirected links not found
There are so many 302 redirected links you found among which most are for the pages which needs users to login to view the pages so redirection to login page is unavoidable. For example: https://www.stopwobble.com/wishlist/index/add/product/98199/form_key/QE0kEzOF2yO3DTtt/ Also we don't have product compare functionlity, but still there are so many links from compare page which redirects to respective category page. For exammple: http://www.stopwobble.com/catalog/product_compare/add/product/98199/uenc/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zdG9wd29iYmxlLmNvbS93b2JibGUtd2VkZ2Vz/form_key/QE0kEzOF2yO3DTtt/ We need to know from where Moz crawler is detecting these links so that we can supress them from being crawled. I already tries to review overall site and confirmed these links nowhere exists in page source or in sitemap.xml
Technical SEO | | torbett0 -
Use 302 redirect when site crashes
My company has switched to a new ecommerce platform that we are not totally familiar with yet. As we've worked with it, we've had a couple situations where both the front and back ends of our site crashed simultaneously (always after installing a third party module). The platform's built-in backup solution hasn't been an option in those situations so we've been coming up with alternatives. We now have a duplicate of the site on our server for such emergencies. The plan is to have pages on the broken site point to the backup site using 302 redirects until the broken site is fixed. Is this correct usage of the 302 redirect? I often see people recommend to never use 302 redirects, but I thought this might be the kind of situation where they'd be appropriate. If so, are there other SEO considerations we should keep in mind? For example, I'm wondering if we should put canonical tags on the temporary site that point to the broken site so the broken site stays in the SE indexes.
Technical SEO | | Kyle_M1 -
Using Web Applications for SEO
I am in the sign/banner business, for years I have had a flash based web application that I developed which allows customers to design their own signs/banners online. With the demise of flash i am prompted to begin developing an HTML5 based application to take it's place. Developing this software is a rather expensive endeavor so many local sign shops, which don't sell on the web, don't bother to develop such an application, but what if i gave it to them? I assume a fair amount would find great value in such an application thereby allowing their clients to communicate a design idea without having to drive to the store front. The application would actually run embedded on my site thus earning me a link back to my site. Question is this: Is this a bad idea. If dozens of sign shops are running my application embedded on their sites will the help or hurt me? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | RocketBanner0 -
Should I use canonicals? Best practice?
Hi there, I've been working on a pretty dated site. The product pages have tabs that separate the product information, e.g., a tab for specifications, a tab for system essentials, an overview tab that is actually just a copy of the product page. Each tab is actually a link to a completely separate page, so product/main-page is split into product/main-page/specs, product/main-page/resources, etc. Wondering if canonicals would be appropriate in this situation? The information isn't necessarily duplicate (except for the overview tabs) but with each tab as a separate page, I would imagine that's diluting the value of the main page? The information all belongs to the main page, shouldn't it be saying "I'm a version of the main page"?
Technical SEO | | anneoaks0 -
301 redirect from Blogger
Hello, I have a client with a Wordpress network of blogs, each blog is owned by a different blogger. Many of them were migrated time ago from Blogger. I have seen that the way used to redirect them is a meta refresh, so no authority is being passed. I cannot find any reliable way of making a 301 from Blogger, There are some plugins, but I'm afraid of using them. Any of you have experience with this situation please? I have even thought about placing a global rel canonical before the meta refresh, but I think that here the problem is the meta refresh itself.... Thank you in advance
Technical SEO | | Juandbbam0 -
Help with strange 404 Errors.
For the most part I have never had trouble tracking down 404's. Usually it's simply a broken link, but lately I have been getting these strange errors http://gridironexperts.com/http%3A/www.nfl.com/gamecenter?game_id=29528&season=2008&displayPage=tab_gamecenter/ What does; %C2%94 repersent? The error always points to NFL.com, but we don't link to them...like ever? Can I just 404: http://gridironexperts.com// to fix the problem, as all 404's start with this weird %C2%94 error. Is this error even on my site? Is in the backend...virus? thanks -Mike
Technical SEO | | MikePatch0