Updating inbound links vs. 301 redirecting the page they link to
-
Hi everyone,
I'm preparing myself for a website redesign and finding conflicting information about inbound links and 301 redirects.
If I have a URL (we'll say website.com/website) that is linked to by outside sources, should I get those outside sources to update their links when I change the URL to website.com/webpage? Or is it just as effective from a link juice perspective to simply 301 redirect the old page to the new page? Are there any other implications to this choice that I may want to consider?
Thanks!
-
I agree, never redirect when you can fix the link.
-
Thanks Richard and Irving!
-
The general consensus of my SEO peers is that approximate 15% of link juice is lost in the redirect and I second what Richard has recommended.
-
Quick fix = do the redirects.
Best practice = do the redirects and try to get the inbound links changed as well.
It is best if you can get the links changed, but always be sure to do redirects as well as there may be other links that you are not aware of.
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
-
Responsive design blowing out on page links?
Hi guys, We have a site about to launch with a responsive design to suit desktop, tablet and mobile. Each design carries it's own navigation as one primary set of navigational links won't suit all versions of the design. So as desktop resizes to mobile (or tablet) the desktop navigation is hidden (css) and replaced by the nav more suited to the mobile experience (hope I've explained that ok!). Problem is that if the primary navigation carries 50 links then all 3 designs together carry 150 links which is too many on page links. Is that going to be a problem? Is there a tag that can be applied to the mobile/tablet nav links? Like a canonical tag but for links?? Cheers in advance of your ideas
Technical SEO | | lovealbatross
James0 -
Is page rank lost through a 301 redirect?
Hi everyone. I'd really appreciate your help with this one 🙂 I've just watched Matt Cutt's video 'what percentage of PageRank is lost through a 301 redirect?' and I am confused. I had taken this to mean that a re-direct would always lose you page rank, but watching it again I am not so sure. He says that the amount of page rank lost through a 301 redirect is the same as any other link. Does this mean that no page rank at all is lost during site migrations? Or is it the case that first page rank would be lost from the original link and then more page rank would be lost from any subsequent redirects? watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw
Technical SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
260k 301 redirects
Hello, I just found that some of the urls on my site have both ugly characters and some other things I'd like to fix (such as ---- into a single - ) After some local tests i've seen that If i leave some imperfections there will be 48k different urls on the other hand if the renaming procedure is strict i'll have around 260k out of 2.3M urls to be renamed. If I'm going to do this I'll create new canonicals meta tag and redirect old urls with 301 headers to the new location. The content will not change. My big doubt is SEO wise, I know that I'll have better urls, but aren't those too much redirects on a single day? what would you do if you wish to have shipshape urls and know some of these are crap? thanks
Technical SEO | | mylittlepwny0 -
How long should you keep 301 redirects?
Hi, Back in 2009 I decided to update an older site from .htm and .shtml to .php. In order to minimize the impact I would go in every month and do a 301 redirect on the .shtml page to the new .php page. So I have many that range from 2009 through 2010. I had left the old 301's because I felt they would only be used if needed but I would think I should clean up my .htaccess by removing the old 301 redirects if they are not needed. How long should you keep this type of 301 redirect? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Force70 -
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 -
404 vs 301
My company is planning on discontinuing one of the product lines we currently offer. In terms of SEO, would it be better to implement a 301 redirect to a generic page page (such as the homepage or main product page), or to create a custom 404 page explaining that the product line with links to other pages (according to the most next viewed pages in Google Analytics). Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
How do 301 redirects affect rankings?
Scenario: example.com/red-shoes gets 301 redirected to example.com/brown-boots because we have stopped selling red shoes and now only sell brown boots (which is a fairly new page with no authority). the red-shoes page ranked well for "red shoes" and "footwear". Will Google still index and show the red-shoes url in the SERPs? Will the "red shoes" and "footwear" keywords still rank well? Or does the redirected/new boots page need to properly support these keywords? The boots page has inherited the juice from the shoes page, but how does it help the boots page rank well? Only for keywords that both pages targeted, like a general "footwear" type keyword? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | akim260 -
How to index our dynamic Servlets to profit from inbound Links?
We have several dynamic Servlets on our Website which help Users to calculate Mortgages: Example: http://www.interhyp.de/interhyp/servlet/interhyp?view=showKaufMietSchieber&STYLE=b2c&alttrackwidth=546 Until now these Servlets are blocked via robots.txt to avoid "stange results being in the Googleindex". Problem / Question: These Servlets are used from lots of external Affiliate Websites, and i like to know how to optimize these inbound Links? Thx.
Technical SEO | | BerndAngermann
Manuel0