How can I redirect incoming links from an old version of my site ending in .ctlg and .ivnu?
-
My original site was published in 2001 using "version 2" software from Ivenue, the hosting company that I signed up with at that time. The site's structure was built in such a way that the primary category pages ended in the extension .ivnu. Product or item pages on the shopping cart side ended in the extension .ctlg. My site's name was and is [Lamplight Feather, Inc.](<a class="webkit-html-attribute-value webkit-html-external-link" href="http://www.tonyhill.net/" target="_blank">http://www.tonyhill.net/</a>). We built our business between 2001 and 2011 and by the last three years (2009 - 2011) of using their version two were averaging a million dollars per year in gross sales.
We decided to "upgrade" to Ivenue's "version 3" in 2011 to take advantage of some more modern options and because their newer software created web pages ending in .html which we thought more desirable. We made the switch in late 2011. But it was a disaster. Traffic and sales dropped precipitously. For the past two years (2012-2013) our annual gross sales average dropped to $400,000. (Two other factors were involved beside losing the many incoming links and link juice we had built up over the years: Panda came in that fall and my little niche market (decorative feathers) was flooded with competitors.)
However as I try to rebuild our traffic and business little by little, I am stumped as to how to redirect the many incoming links that went to our first site's .ivnu and .ctlg pages. I have constructed redirects for some of our current but changed .html pages like this and put them in the file cabinet and they work:
For (example): http://www.tonyhill.net/feathers_c384589.html then
But trying the same thing for (example) http://www.tonyhill.net/craftfeathers.ivnu still returns a 404. Is there something I am missing. Ivenue is useless in this matter by the way. Their "technicians" are no help. I plan to be migrating my site once again to a new hosting company and hope to solve this problem before then. Thanks for the attention,
Tony Hill
This is an example from Google Webmaster of the type of links that show up as 404's that I would like to redirect:
| URL: | http://www.tonyhill.net/productCat96521.ctlg |
|
| Error details | Linked from | |
<colgroup><col></colgroup>
| http://www.tonyhill.net/productCat43986.ctlg |
| http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=21416&page=2 |
| http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?p=3832751 |
| http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=21416&page=2&highlight=fur |
| http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/puppeteers-resources-links.19330/page-2 |
| http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/how-do-you-like-my-puppets.18549/page-2 || | |
|
-
Dear Caitlin,
Thanks for pointing out that the redirects DID work. Duh. Not sure what happened when I checked and determined they were not working. However they are all Meta_Refresh redirects. It seems that Ivenue cannot install 301's on the server side. At least no one there I have talked to seems to know how. Presume there is a problem with the original proprietary software (.ctlg, .ivnu). I have another inquiry in with them today. So we shall see.
I do have a concern that the Meta_Refresh redirects are hurting my link juice. We are talking about several hundred (or more) incoming links that reference those .ivnu and .ctlg pages.
-
Hello Tony,
I wish I could be of more help. Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with this platform. One thing that I noticed is that that you said the following link 404'd: http://www.tonyhill.net/craftfeathers.ivnu. However, for me, it loads just fine.
One recommendation I have would be to download the following redirect checker http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/redirect-checker.html. Once in your dashboard it will notify you if a redirect that you implemented is properly resolving.
Remember to create 301 redirect not 302. 302 redirects are meant to be temporary and, as a result, link equity will not flow through them. 301 redirects are considered permanent.
I hope this provides some help! ^Caitlin
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
-
Sudden drop in traffic since website redesign – can't spot double firing sessions pre-update
Hi all, We launched an updated website around mid-April and have seen a long-term drop in unique page views and sessions since then. Between 25-35%. Page views returned to normal within a month, however. In terms of acquisition, we've not lost referrals or direct traffic, just organic sessions. I haven't seen any significant Google updates except for 'Fred' but that was in March (pre-website update). We did have to do some 301s and fix up an HTML and XML sitemap, etc, post launch – but that's been in place for a while now so shouldn't still have such an effect? We are also struggling with load speed at the moment, working on this at the moment. Didn't think this had a such a significant impact on ranking however. We've lost mostly non-UK traffic, especially USA. We're actually climbing rankings for a lot of new keywords I'm targeting, so I can't see how our SEO has been hampered. Frustratingly, I wasn't using Search Console or Moz Pro before this update, so can't compare much in the way of keyword traffic (I know I feel very silly now). I don't know if it's a reporting issue (I wish it was). I mean we had both GTM and GA tags on the website (I didn't know this until I looked into it) but these were present post website-launch. And I haven't found enough double firing sessions or page views to suggest we used to be getting double figures anyway. Before this, we were ranking brilliantly and getting more organic traffic than ever. All the best,
Reporting & Analytics | | landport0 -
How do you handle a "too many inbound links" notice on your crawl diagnostics report?
How do you handle a "too many inbound links" notice on your crawl diagnostics report? The url's identified come from our blog....is it reading all the blog post URL's and giving me a notice? Is this ok to leave all the links? Or would anyone recommend no follow tags on all of our blog posts?
Reporting & Analytics | | cschwartzel0 -
Can you re sit the Google analytics IQ test?
Damn I just failed the Google analytics IQ test with a score of 65% 😞 You need 80% to pass... My natural instinct is to resit but after 30 mins of googling around Ive got no answer to the following question: "Can you resit the Google Analytics IQ test for free or do you have to pay again". Any insights welcome...
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing0 -
Multi-Site Analytics Dashboards?
Anyone have recommendations on a good multi-site analytics dashboard? I am managing roughly 20 sites right now, and am looking for a dashboard that provides basic info like # of visitors, search traffic, etc. for a couple dozen sites at a glance.
Reporting & Analytics | | TakeshiYoung0 -
Trackbacks vs Links: What's the Difference?
Our Google Analytics social pages report isn't showing several of our links. And several links are from high quality sources, such as about.com. Does anyone know why this may be?
Reporting & Analytics | | nicole.healthline0 -
Do links with tracking codes pass PageRank?
I have a client that has acquired a link from an influential partner but the partner has set the link up to have clicks tracked within their analytics. Do links like this pass PageRank: Anchor Text
Reporting & Analytics | | SearchEngineRescue0 -
How Can I Record .zip Traffic in Google Analytics
The company I am with shows traffic coming in to .zip files in Google Analytics. The traffic being recorded stopped a while back, but I know people are still downloading/visiting these .zip ULRs. I'm not sure how they were recording/tracking the .zip URLs (in Analytics) before, but I'd like to track them once again. Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | poolguy0 -
Yahoo Site explorer: Different results for www & non-www domain. Can we merge these?
When checking our domain on yahoo site explorer, different results are shown for www.theprintspace.de and theprintspace.de. We have done a 301 redirect, as we want to optimise our www.theprintspace.de domain. However, we have a lot more backlinks for theprintspace.de. Is there any way of merging the two, so we don't loose all the linkjuice we get for theprintspace.de and use those links to optimise www.theprintspace.de? Thanks for your help!
Reporting & Analytics | | Waplington0