301 redirect file question
-
Hi Everyone,
I am creating a list of 301 redirects to give to a developer to put into Magento. I used Screaming Frog to crawl the site, but I have noticed that all of their urls 302 to another page. I am wondering if I should 301 the first URL to the url on the new site, or the second. I am thinking the first, but would love some confirmation.
Thank you!
-
Google will index the second URL but will not pass any SEO weight to it since, as a temporary redirection, the first URL is expected to be restored shortly.
You can find a very helpful explanation about redirections here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
-
HI Alyssa, Dave here.
I know you may not want to give out your URL publically but if you can send me your URL as a private message I'm happy to look into it specifically as I'd hate to give the wrong answer. I'll answer it here in this thread so it can serve as useful to others but I'll keep the URL to myself.
Dave
-
Thanks Daniel. There isn't a good reason anymore, we are moving the site and have a new design. I am thinking that Google is indexing the original URL though since they see the second URL as temporary. Is this incorrect?
Alyssa
-
Hi Dave,
The current site is .net I believe. We are moving to a Magento site. It's an old site so we're not sure why they have all these 302's, but I am planning on making them all 301's so we can move whatever rank there is.
Wouldn't Google actually be indexing the original URL since these are 302 redirects and they see them as temporary?
Thanks for your help!
Alyssa -
I don't know the specific scenario you're talking about obviously but I'd recommend first checking under:
system > configuration > web > url options
Majento shouldn't be generating a 302 on every page but I'll be the first to say that Majento also isn't my strong suit. I don't like the sounds of it however as a 302 can bleed out your PageRank.
At what I'm hearing I'd recommend for the 301s you're setting up now - point them to the final target. Even if Majento was doing a 301 I'd still recommend this. Think of it like you're asking me for directions and I know both the final destination and another guy who does too. Would you rather I just told you where to go or pointed at the other guy?
That said, hopefully someone can come up with a more specific Majento answer for you.
-
If there is a good reason for those redirects to be temporary, use the first URL. If not use the second.
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
-
Should existing canonical tags be removed where a 301 redirect is the preferred option?
Hi, I'm working on a site that is currently using canonical tags to deal with www and non-www variations. My recommendation is to setup 301 redirects to deal with this issue instead. However, is it ok to leave the existing canonical tags in place alongside the new 301 redirects or should they be removed? My thoughts are that this is not a canonical issue and therefore they should be removed? If 301 redirects are not possible it would be better have them that nothing at all but I don't think we need both, right? Any feedback much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | MVIreland0 -
301 Redirect Attribute-Based Dynamic URL to Renamed Attributes
I work with a number of ecommerce sites that have dynamically-created urls based off of product attributes we've assigned in our cms. I am updating a handful of these attributes to more seo-friendly terms because they are outdated but am not certain how to go about redirecting all the urls that each attribute is in/could be in. For example: If I had the attributes hoagie and beanie and changed them to sandwich and headwear, a dynamic url might change like this: .com/hoagie/french-bread ---> .com/sandwich/french-bread .com/beanie/hoagie/novelty ----> .com/headwear/sandwich/novelty Since the urls are dynamically created, I am not sure how I go about redirecting all of them, or if I need to redirect all of them at all (instead just redirecting the urls indexed by Google, etc.) I also have a number of links within copy on each of the sites that contain linked anchor text using attributes that will be changing. I am assuming I will need to 301 each of these or update them manually to reflect the new attributes. I am new to the seo field and would appreciate any and all advice or direction to guides and tutorials that could aid me with this project. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OfficeFurn0 -
301 redirects reverting to 302 redirects
We recently built a new website with a new site structure. To prevent there being a load of 404's I redirected the old pages to the new relevant pages with 301 redirects. A few days later the SEOmoz crawl report alerted me to a load of 302 redirects. When I looked into this for some reason all of the 301 redirects I set up are reverting to 302 redirects. I did a test by 301 redirecting a made up URL to an existing page and the same thing happens - it 302 redirects. I can't find any settings in WordPress to possibly explain why this is happening. Has anyone got any ideas why this could be?
Technical SEO | | Tone_Agency0 -
Is there ever a time when 301 redirects aren't possible?
I have been told that 301 redirects are always possible. I've been told that it's a very time consuming process so developers at times will say that it's not possible. Is there ever a time when it is not impossible? Perhaps using a specific server? I know it's do-able in Apache which is the server that is in question. Would it be impossible if someone were using a templated type set of websites & if they made changes on one website it would make changes across all websites? *Edit "due to a server configuration 301 redirects aren't possible" Thanks so much for any help or answers you can provide.
Technical SEO | | DCochrane0 -
When is it safe to remove 301 redirects?
I have created over 500 301 redirects in my .htaccess file, some of them are more than 2 years old now. Should I delete them? I don't like seeing the "notices" number in crawl diagnostics so high 😞
Technical SEO | | danielshaw0 -
301 redirects and OSE
We run a blog/video real estate site (yochicago.com) as one of the venues for sponsored content for our clients looking for off-page SEO and inbound links. I'm working with a client who we've linked to a handful of times in the last few weeks, but I'm not seeing any external links from our site on PRO/OSE. Come to find that our writer has been linking to http://clientsite.com, instead of http://www.clientsite.com, which is the canonical site. I wouldn't have thought that this would make a difference, and about an hour of web research seems to confirm that it shouldn't make a difference, save for losing a little bit of SEO credit. What am I missing? Any input would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | mikescotty0 -
Should I move x-cart installation or 301 redirect?
We have an existing e-commerce site built on x-cart. The default store location is www.site.com/store. The domain root however is just a static HTML page (currently using mainly graphics) and a nav menu. What would be a better option: 1. Move the install location to the root directory and get rid of the static HTML page. We would have to manually 301 redirect all the old pages to the new location. Not sure if there are negative implications with that. 2. Just optimize the HTML landing page? Seems like it is better to have products and categories as close to the root domain as possible... 3. 301 redirect the domain to www.site.com/store/ and optimize the homepage within the store. This option means we dont have to worry about 2000 redirects or the hassle of moving the store. Anyone had any experience with this and suggestions?
Technical SEO | | BlinkWeb0 -
Robots.txt File Redirects to Home Page
I've been doing some site analysis for a new SEO client and it has been brought to my attention that their robots.txt file redirects to their homepage. I was wondering: Is there a benfit to setup your robots.txt file to do this? Will this effect how their site will get indexed? Thanks for your response! Kyle Site URL: http://www.radisphere.net/
Technical SEO | | kchandler0