Redirect URLS with 301 twice
-
Hello,
I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this.
We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND. However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result.
The problems I see are these unless he redirects again:
- The new simplified URLS have to start from scratch to rank
2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content
- Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page.
I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these:
-
Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice?
-
If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
-
This type of structure also fits in nicely with your analytics package. You can look at all the visits to /toyota/ to see how popular that is compared with all the visits to /ford/, for example.
-
If the p pages were only there for a small amount of time, then just forget them, as they wont have any links pointing to them.
don't worry about the SERPS they will go way soon.
but I would have renamed the HOME folder to a keyword. so that you get a keyword into your url.
is a better url than
-
Thank You Houses! Of course that is the soultion. I had been staring at the problem for too long that I couldn't see the wood for the trees!
What would I do without Moz helpers!
Thanks
-
Ideally you don't want a redirect chain. It's best to redirect the old page to the new, missing out the middle one.
Redirect the middle page to the new too.
Hope that helps
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
-
Old Content after 301 Redirect Success
Hi, I want to ask what need I do to the old content after my 301 redirect to the new domain with the same content success? Do I need to remove that old content? Nothing bad happen right? Thanks
Technical SEO | | matthewparkman0 -
Http:// to https:// 301 or 302 redirect
I've read over the Q & A in the Community, but am wondering the reasoning behind this issue. I know - 301's are permanent and pass links, and 302s are temporary (due to cache) and don't pass links. But, I've run across two sites now that 302 redirect http:// to https://. Is there a valid reason behind this? From my POV and research, the redirect should 301 if it's permanent, but is there a larger issue I am missing?
Technical SEO | | FOTF_DigitalMarketing1 -
301 redirects don't work properly
Hello all, I've been working on 301 redirects for a bit and normally it's no problem but some seem to be going wrong. Redirect 301 /3-zits.html http://www.bankstellenshop.com/banken/3-zits.html This one works properly but the following one gives a very strange result as it goes to http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen.html/u (no idea where the .html comes from) Redirect 301 /bankstellen/u http://www.bankstellenshop.com/bankstellen/u.html Any idea what I'm doing wrong or what should change? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | Kapottefietsband0 -
Htaccess code to 301 redirect a folder change
Hi, I need some help to redirect all my site as there was a folder change. eg, the old structure was www.mysite.com/stuff-1/bags.html and I need it to go to the same structure without the "-1" eg: /stuff/bags.html
Technical SEO | | Paul_MC
The "bags.html" will be lots of different products, so this would be a wildcard? What would the htaccess code need to be? Thanks0 -
Mobile URL parameter (Redirection to desktop)
Hello, We have a parallel mobile website and recently we implemented a link pointing to the desktop website. This redirect is happening via a javascript code and results in a url followed by this paramenter: ?m=off Example:
Technical SEO | | echo1
http://www.m.website.com redirects to:
http://www.website.com/?m=off Questions: Will the "http://www.website.com/?m=off" be considered duplicate content with "http://www.website.com" since they both return the same content? Is there any possibility that Google will take into consideration the url ending in "/?m=off"? How should we treat this new url? The webmaster tools URL parameter configuration at the moment isn't experiencing problems but should we submit the parameter anyway in order not to be indexed or should we wait first and see the error response? In case we should submit this for removal... what's the best way to do it? Like this? Parameter: ?m=off Does this parameter change page content seen by the user? - doesn't affect page content Any help is much appreciated.
Thank you!0 -
301 redirects and seo..
I bought a domain and it has nice traffic. It only has about 5 main pages in php When i got the site i switched to html because php was overkill. I did the 301 and google deleted the php files and replaced with html version when i check site:domain.com It has been about 7 days. I DID NOT use 301 for each of the 5 pages to go php to html instead is used this code RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | samerk
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com
RewriteRule (.) http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RedirectMatch 301 (.).php$ http://www.mydomain.com$1.html So basically if you load php it will load the html version. dog.php > dog.html Is this OKAY? or should it be done differently.... worried! Thanks !0 -
Vanity / Short URLs 301?
Hi everyone, I'm working on a website that uses a lot of short urls eg http://www.forest.com/oaktrees. A quick check reveals these are currently 302 status. My question is should these be made 301s - a lot of them are in off-page content and looking at GA attract a lot of clicks. I've not managed to see a definitive answer to this after several Google searches. All help and advice greatly appreciated. Bw Jon
Technical SEO | | CoL-PR0 -
What tools produce a complete list of all URLs for 301 redirects?
I am project managing the rebuild of a major corporate website and need to set up 301 redirects from the old pages to the new ones. The problem is that the old site sits on multiple CMS platforms so there is no way I can get a list of pages from the old CMS. Is there a good tool out there that will crawl through all the sites and produce a nice spreadsheet with all the URLs on it? Somebody mentioned Xenu but I have never used it. Any recommendations? Thanks -Adrian
Technical SEO | | Adrian_Kingwell0