Redirect Error
-
Hello,
I was sent a report from a colleague containing redirect errors:
The link to "http://www.xxxx.com/old-page/" has resulted in HTTP redirection to "http://www.xxxx.com/new-page".Search engines can only pass page rankings and other relevant data through a single redirection hop. Using unnecessary redirects can have a negative impact on page ranking.
Our site is host on Microsoft Servers (IIS).
I'm not sure what is causing these errors.
Would it be the way the redirect was implemented.
-
as someone who does a lot of auditing, I need to say I'm confused by this somewhat.
"The link to "http://www.xxxx.com/old-page/" has resulted in HTTP redirection to "http://www.xxxx.com/new-page"
That's only one hop. Which is perfectly valid. So where are the "unnecessary redirects" that report is referring to?
By all means, if you have problems on the site, fixing them is always the proper course of action. I only wonder whether you really do have a problem.
Also, for the record, the claim "Search engines can only pass page rankings and other relevant data through a single redirection hop" is NOT true. While more than one hop can be harmful due to slowing Googlebot's crawl, and where multiple hops can slow user experience, which are OTHER, related possible problems for SEO, as long as the hops are kept to one, two, or perhaps three at most, you are sill going to be able to get the full individual page SEO value passed.
Note that this is true only if the new destination page has all of the same SEO signals the original page had. Because you can't magically pass SEO value from page A to page x just by using a redirect. Even if its just one redirect. If page x is significantly different than page A, that's going to change the trust score for the passed value.
Also here's a video from Matt Cutts regarding multiple hop redirects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lVPrYoBkA
-
You would need to check the web.config file rather than htaccess as you mentioned your hosted on Microsoft Servers (IIS). Although the following answer is referring to WWW v non WWW the principal is the same:
http://moz.com/community/q/how-do-i-redirect-non-www-pages-to-www-on-a-windows-server#reply_36077
-
I would be curious to know the answer as well.
I was using a quick redirect plugin in Wordpress which I assumed was modifying the .htaccess file (not sure why I thought that). I found out it was not, and although the plugin was very convenient, hard coding the redirect into the .htaccess is much safer and much more effective.
The other thing I noticed when I looked into our .htaccess file was we had code that was rewriting the URI.
For example:
/tag/addiction-treatment/ was actually reading as /addiction-treatment/ so the actual 404 was incurring was on the /addiction-treatment/ page and the redirect needed to happen at /addiction-treatment/ not /tag/addiction-treatment/
Sorry if I jumped the gun a little bit, sometimes I get excited and I can't contain myself!
Hope that helps a ltitle.
-
Did you use a redirect on the page itself or did you use a 301/302 redirect using htaccess?
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
-
Redirect 301 to homepage
Hello there, I have some low quality pages in my site, can I redirect 301 them to my homepage? My website is: https://idanito.com idanito.com
Technical SEO | | dannybaldwin0 -
Sitemap error in Webmaster tools - 409 error (conflict)
Hey guys, I'm getting this weird error when I submit my sitemap to Google. It says I'm getting a 409 error in my post-sitemap.xml file (https://cleargear.com/post-sitemap.xml). But when I check it, it looks totally fine. I am using YoastSEO to generate the sitemap.xml file. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a big deal? If so, Does anyone know how to fix? Thanks EwTswL4
Technical SEO | | Extima-Christian0 -
Redirecting homepage to subdirectory
Any issues with 301 redirecting a site's homepage to the English version subdirectory? Example: Original homepage: www.mysite.com New homepage: www.mysite.com/en/ The site is very old and very authoritative and trusted with lots of traffic.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Redirects - How Best to do this ?
Hi I am looking to close Website A which has many pages. I would like to keep the home page and add some great content to it with a link pointing to Website B. As for all the other pages excluding the home page , how is it best to approach them on Website A. Should I redirect them all to the home page of Website A which will tell Google thoose Pages are no longer needed and to prevent the visitors from seeing a 404? My Main aim here is to not lose any visitors to Website A by sending them to Website B but also to hopefully pass any Page strength from Website A to Website B Thanks Adam
Technical SEO | | AMG1000 -
CPanel Redirects: Know How Needed
I have ran into something I have not ran into in the past. cpanel, setting a 301 redirect. --Drop down domain choice ----- / ---- ?attachment_id=539 http://ipromotis.com (Only box marked is redirect with or without www) Produces 301 Redirect http://ipromotis.com to http://ipromotis.com
Technical SEO | | yeagerd0 -
Redirecting 404
Hi. I'm working on a wordpress site, which got some old deleted pages indexed and now shows a 404 (also in the results) As these old pages earlier got content and probably also some links pointing towards it, what would then be best practice to do? Should i make an 301 redirect? Make the 404 noindex?
Technical SEO | | Mickelp0 -
302 to 301 redirect confirmation
Hi guys, Fairly sure of the answer from what I've read so far, but I just wanted to doublecheck I have it right. Page A gets a significant amount of referring, followed traffic, and also ranks in Google. Page A uses a 302 redirect to Page B (on a completely different domain), which means that 0% of Page A's link juice is being passed on to Page B. If I were to change the 302 redirect to a 301 redirect, then the link juice passed on to Page A from the followed, referring traffic will be (mostly) passed on to Page B. Is that correct? Cheers, Jez
Technical SEO | | jez0000 -
301 redirects
At the moment it's possible to access the home page of my website via two different urls, with and without www. and you've told me that this can be resolved with Canonicalization and a 301 redirect. Do I do this with my web hosting package or in my html pages? If I can't do it with my web host (1&1) then is there an idiot's guide of how to do it yourself? I've also got both the domain vamospaella.co.uk and vamospaella.com. Is it better to have one of these redirecting to the other for UK traffic (at the moment .co.uk redirects to .com) Thanks
Technical SEO | | melissa10