Changing 301s or using 302s after a relaunch?
-
We are doing a relaunch and changing nearly every URL. Since the list of redirects is > 5.000 we might have some mistakes we want to change later (i.e. having a 301 to a directory but finding a single page later that fits its purpose better).
Can I change the 301 later and will seachengines get that?
Can I use 302s for a week or two until I'm sure about my redirects and only than do propper 301s?
-
Above everything, Google looks for your user experience. If you have a ton of 302 redirects you will have duplicate content errors, If you start changing 301 redirects you will eventually create a spider web that is hard to navigate. If you set up your 301 redirects and have to change a few, you should be ok. If you set up 5000 redirects and end up changing 4500 of them or creating duplicate 301 redirects you will eventually have really slow page speeds and bad user experience which Google will recognize and not like.
302 redirects are not common or best practice. I would avoid them all together.
-
Thanks. I know hot to change them technically. The question is how google will react
-
Are you doing these redirects in the HTAccess file? If so, you should be able to change them at a later date without any issue. A 302 redirect is not going to help you in this situation. Using a 302 will still allow the engines to crawl the old URLs which will lead to duplicate content errors and tons of problems ranking pages in the future.
Whittie is correct, you should be able to go back and edit 301s individually after you dynamically redirect them. It depends on your CMS or Platform how easy that will actually be.
-
Depends on the CMS. Anything other than WP, I just go back through the list and tick them off if they're correct, might not be the quickest way to do it. Are you using WordPress? There's a redirection plugin which allows you to do each individually so you can check it's correct as soon as you've applied the 301.
-
And how's your experience changing them later on?
-
I would really try to avoid using 302's if possible, they can end up being more trouble than they're worth.
Setting up 301 redirects is a pain but helps the moving process to be a lot smoother. Nobody enjoys putting together a redirect list but it's a necessity, have 1000 still to get through myself!
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
-
Relaunching website in two phases - 301 redirect approach
Hey Mozzers, Interested to know your thoughts on the following situation. I am relaunching a website with an updated URL structure in TWO phases. Phase one will be a much smaller version of the site, with 30% of the pages going live - the remaining 70% of page won't be available until Phase two. In Phase one, these 30% of pages will be 301 redirected from their like-for-like versions - old site to new site. The remaining 70%... because the like-for-like pages won't be available until Phase two, which is likely to be launched in 3 months time, should I do a temporary redirect on these pages (302) to the new homepage for the time being, until the new versions of the pages are live - and then implement the 301 from old url to new url. A bit of a messy situation, and not ideal for SEO, but my hands are tied as the organisation is pushing ahead with this phased approach. So, interested to hear your thoughts on an appropriate 301 migration plan.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWesley0 -
Rankings drastically changing
I monitor our positions for a few keywords but they are very unstable. One day they will be at position 1, 2 or 3 and then all of a sudden not even on Google. We use an IP redirect to guide users to the correct site and I suspect this may be a cause. Could anybody shed some light? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JordanRowlands0 -
Does Domain Authority remian if site owner and server changes
Hi i am looking at buying an existing domain. It is currently vacant and the site is just on a godaddy holdpage. if i buy this domain, will its DA and PA TF CF still remain if we don't lose the links? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Review site using canonical tag in a puzzling way.
Have just been looking at a review site and they're using the canonical tag very strangely, to me. For example, they may have several pages of reviews of the same item - they use the canonical tag on page 2/3/4 to point back at page 1 - and yet there is no duplication between the pages. Any idea why they might be doing this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
How would you use this broken link building opportunity?
I've found a good opportunity to build some links and I'd love your opinions on my options here. There's a big event that happens once a year in my city. Let's say the event used to have a website called www.CityEvent.com. The event decided not to use this website anymore, but instead to put all of their event information on their facebook page. It looks like they let their domain name expire and someone else snapped it up. It's now sitting as an empty wordpress blog with one line of text. This empty website has 1300 links pointing to it. I can see two opportunities here: 1. Write a very thorough article on my website (that I am trying to build links to) describing the event and giving people all of the information that they need to know about it. (The amount of information on the Facebook page is minimal.) or 2. Create a new website called www.EventCity.com and put up a static page with all of the information that people need to know. There would be a link on this page pointing to the site that I am trying to rank. In both cases there would be much more information than is available on the Facebook page including a collection of youtube videos about the event and many helpful links for people who are interested in this type of event. Then the plan is to contact the sites who are linking to the dead page and invite them to link to my new page (either on my site or the new site that I could create). I see a few pros and cons to each method. For option #2 I think people would be more likely to link to a more official looking page rather than an article on a separate website. (My website has information about the city in question but is not closely related to the event at all.) However, I would only be getting one link back to my site. One negative to this is that the actual organizers of the event may not be pleased that someone has created an official looking page. But then again, perhaps they would be happy to have a free website. For option #1 I would possibly get more links from sites that are authoritative in my city that point directly to the site I am trying to rank. However, people would be less likely to link to us because we are not an official site for the event, but simply a very good article about the event. There are no other good articles for this event that are ranking on Google. Hopefully that makes sense. What would you do? EDIT - Just thought of a third option - try to buy the domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes0 -
How to change a site without loosing ranking .
How to change a site without loosing ranking .I have a WP site for my own company .locally i have good ranking for few keywords .but I decided to change site theme and improve site contents further .but still i am not sure how to change these thing and doing without loosing ranking .expert advices welcome .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
Can changing dynamic url of over 2000 pages site after a year will change its ranking
Hi- Have built site in joomla The urls are dynamic in nature with over a year - all pages are well indexed and backlinks been built over with these dynamic urls Need to know if i hire an agency to change over dynamic url to static url of these 2000 pages - will it also change all Search engine ranking positions of existing urls Will all the seo effort and backlinks build over 15 months will still hold valid or this will just back to square one due to change of urls is it advisable to get the url changed from dynamic to static one - especially when site is receiving over 75,000 visitors every month Thanks in advance. Look for expert suggestions
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
What Backlink Services Do You Use or Recommend?
Hi, I need some help w/ link blding and would like to outsource some of it. Can you recommend any reputable company thats affordable? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan0