301 Redirect Best Practices
-
Hi SEOs,
Question about ranking/redirects. If I have a particular page that is already ranking for a couple KWs in top SERPs, but know there are higher volume KWs I can optimize for should I just leave it as is or change the URL key and redirect for the time being until Google re-indexes.
Example:
current URL: www.example.com/action/best-movies
new URL: www.example.com/action/best-action-movies
(the current would be ranking for "best action moves" whereas the new would include the actual "best action movies" KW)Let me know if I can clarify, thank you!
-
Hey Paul, that makes complete sense. Thanks for your help.
-
It would seem I put the wrong link - the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw however I would still stick to my point and get the URL you are happy to rank for and then sort out the content on the page. While the URL may only be a small factor in google algorithm.
But if your unhappy with your url structure now, no matter what happens Ive found that in a year or so you will wish you had changed the url.
So I always recommend changing the url to something you are happy with, then work on content, link building and improving the page, but I would still argue that the little bit of page rank lost (and without knowing the page its going to be hard to know exactly the implications), its worth it to get the URL structure you are happy with and then work on the content.
What I wouldn't recommend is 301 a page, to another page which then 301 to another page - this is seen as bad and you will lose a lot of link power, google may follow 2 or 3 stacked 301s but after that they wont http://www.jamesburton.net/chained-301-redirects-google-search-impact/. So doing a 301 wont hurt your ranking if you have decent content and links built in, just don't start stacking 301s
-
Did you even read the article you quote, Andrew? It clearly states that 301s definitely DO dissipate Pagerank. That's even the title of the article! And Matt Cutts' direct quote is
The amount of PageRank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of PageRank that dissipates through a link. [emphasis mine]
Clearly what he is saying is that the redirect doesn't reduce the flow more than a regular link, but does reduce it by the same amount. (which many estimate to be as high as 15%). This whole discussion was in context of not using convoluted linking methods in order to avoid using a 301 redirect which was at first thought to reduce PR flow more than a regular link did.
So the bottom line message is "use a 301 when that is the best solution". But you still shouldn't use them unnecessarily as they do "waste" flow of PageRank.
Paul
Paul
-
Having the target keyword in the URL is only one of many ranking signals, Reed, and in my experience a fairly small one. In addition, contrary to Ahalliday's claim, 301 redirects DO in fact dilute "link juice" by the same amount as regular links would (some estimate by up to 15%).
So in my opinion, you'd be on a fool's errand. Whatever you gained from having the keyword in the URL would be lost by passing through a juice-reducing redirect. I'd say you could find much more productive ways to spend your optimisation time. That's not to say you can't still tune up your other on-page factors for the "better" terms, especially If you're already ranking for the higher-volume term with that page. Even better - invest a little time getting some off-page boosts, like earning a few good links. Maybe add some additional quality content like images, video, comparison charts, etc. That'll have far greater effect.
Does that make sense?
Paul
-
According to Matt Cutts you don't lose that much page rank for 301's.
http://www.seroundtable.com/redirects-links-pagerank-16419.html
I would probably recommend changing your url for the higher volume keywords and putting 301s in place and in theory you shouldn't lose ranking for your current rankings
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
-
301 Redirect Review Nodes
I have a client who rents out vacation beach rentals. They currently have thousands of homes under management. Each property has its own internal reviewing platform. Reviews are not really intended to be viewed on their own, as in a stand alone page with just the review on it. The problem is that Drupal makes just about every type of node viewable on its own dedicated URL. I was just thinking about taking request to view stand alone reviews and 301’ing them to their respective property page, the context in which they are intended to be viewed. The website has about 2500 review nodes currently crawlable via Drupal that sit on their own URLs. Would there be a material impact to 301 them to their respective property page when any attempt to view them on their own is made to the site?
Technical SEO | | conversionpipeline20 -
Product Level 301 Redirects Best Practice
When creating a 301 mapping file for product pages, what is best practice
Technical SEO | | Bucktown
for which version of the URL to redirect to? Base directory or one
subdirectory/category path. Example Old URL: www.example.com/clothing/pants/blue-pants-123 Which of the following should be the new target URL: www.example.com/apparel/pants/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/blue-apparel/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/collections/spring-collection/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/blue-pants-123 This is assuming the canonical tag will be www.example.com/blue-pants-123. Also, if www.example.com/blue-pants-123 cannot be reached via site
navigation would it be detrimental to make that the target URL if Google
cannot crawl that naturally? Thanks0 -
Best Practice to Remove a Blog
Note: Re-posting since I accidentally marked as answered Hi, I have a blog that has thousands of URL, the blog is a part of my site. I would like to obsolete the blog, I think the best choices are 1. 404 Them: Problem is a large number of 404's. I know this is Ok, but makes me hesitant. 2. meta tag no follow no index. This would be great, but the question is they are already indexed. Thoughts? Thanks PS A 301 redirect to the main page would be flagged as a soft 404
Technical SEO | | Bucky0 -
How to 301 redirect via OpenCms/7.5.4
Hi everyone, My programmer told me it is impossible to do a permanent redirect from www.website.com/index.html to www.website.com due to cms technical limitation which I do not want to believe hence is it possible / is there documentation available instructing on how to do a proper 301 permanent redirect on OpenCMS 7.5.4? Thanks a lot! Steve
Technical SEO | | sjcbayona-412180 -
301 Redirect with an Exact Domain name Match
My Client had a site that ranked for a pretty competitive two word phrase, but for a variety of reasons had to transfer the site to a different domain name (with none of the previous keywords). We've 301'd everything just fine to the new site, but our traffic for that two word phrase, as well as related long tail traffic, is beginning to drop. Could the drop be related to something that we didn't do well in the transfer? Or is it due to the new domain name now not being an exact match? Sitenote question: Our Google Analytics is still set up for the former domain name and shows data just fine. Is there any reason to switch GA to the new domain? What are the pros/cons? Much thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | TrevorMcKendrick0 -
301-redirect
Hi My website is fairly new and i wasnt aware of the difference btw 'website.com' and 'www.website.com' when i started up. It doesnt matter which one i use as long as i am consistent right ? Most of my ingoing links are to mainpage on 'website.com'. I have som ingoing links to 'www.website.com' but also some to 'www.website.com/brandname'. is it enough to 301-redir 'www.website.com' to 'website.com' or does it need to be done on several levels ? I need to have someone do the redirect for me - how can i check its working when its done ? Dan Lærum
Technical SEO | | danlae0 -
How to show a 'We are now...' message for a rebrand and do a 301 redirect?
Our developer wants to use javascript, document referral or adding a URL parameter, in order to show a modal window telling them 'We are now...'. A cookie seems to be too much work. All of which don't play nice with the search engines. Do you know of a technique or method that allows us to be SEO friendly and still give a good user experience? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Pawngo0 -
What are the SEOmoz-suggested best practices for limiting the number of 301 redirects for a given site?
I've read some vague warnings of potential problems with having a long list of 301 redirects within an htaccess file. If this is a problem, could you provide any guidance on how much is too much? And if there is a problem associated with this, what is that problem exactly?
Technical SEO | | roush0