Google still indexing home page even after with 301 - Ecommerce Website
-
Hi all,
We have a 301 redirect problem. Google seems to continue indexing a 301 redirect to our old home page. Even after months.We have a multiple language domain, with subfolders:
- www.example.com (ex page, now with a redirect to the right locale in the right country)
- www.example.com/it/home (canonical)
- www.example.com/en/home (canonical)
- www.example.com/es/home (canonical)
- www.example.com/fr/home (canonical)
- www.example.com/de/home (canonical)
We still see the old page (www.example.com) in Google results, with old metadata in English and, just in some countries (i.e.: France), we see the correct result, the "new" homepage, www.example.com/fr/home in first position.
The real problem is that Google is still indexing and showing www.example.com as the "real" and "trusted" URL, even if we set:- a 301 redirect
- the right language for every locale in Google Search Console
- a canonical tag to the locale url
- an hreflang tag inside the code
- a specific sitemap with hreflang tag specified for the new homepages
Now our redirect process is the following (Italy example).
www.example.com -->301
www.example.com/en/home --> default version --->301
www.example.com/it/home --> 200Every online tool, from Moz to Bot simulators see that there is a 301. So Correct.
Google Search Console says that:
- on www.example.com there is a 301 (correct)
- in the internal link section of Google Search Console the www.example.com is still in first position with 34k links. Many of these links are cominig from property subdomains. Should we change those links inside those third level domain? From www.example.com to www.example.com/LOCALE/home?
- the www.example.com/LOCALE/home are the real home page, they give 200 code
Do you know if there's a way to delete the old home page from Google results since this is 301?
Do you think that, even after a 301 redirect, if Google sees too many internal links decides to ignore the 301?
Thanks for your help!
Davide
-
Hi Matt,
thanks for your reply!
In the alias section of our ecommerce platform (Demandware) we have set this redirect:
www.example.com --> HomeShow
When HomeShow solves in the locale pipeline (www.example.com/en/home or /it/home etc). Is Demandware that automatically assigns the right home page based on this method:
- If it is the first time you land on Example and you don't have our cookie, Demandware will set the locale based on your browser language and the country from your IP (we use the country just for the shipping, so in this case we just consider the language).
- If it is not the first time you see Example.com Demandware will use your cookie stored, using the previous language you set. I.e.: you land for your first time on example.com, you come from Paris, the language was FR but you decided to change in DE for some reason. Then the next time you land on the website you will find DE as language and France as shipping country.
HREFLANG
We use hreflang tag in the code, it works perfectly so if you look for results in specific countries you will always find just the right pages (i.e.: if you look in Google.de all the results are www.example.de/women/etc, same thing for UK, IT, ES). The problem is just associated to the old home page, www.example.com. And all the sitelinks are correct, in the right language.
This is the hreflang tag we have:
WHY AN AUTOMATICALLY REDIRECT INSTEAD OF A LANGUAGE PAGE
Because this is the logic we have adopted behind our ecommerce sites. We could potentially change this method to a splash page but the real problem is that in google.fr everything works perfectly!! It sounds absurd! In Google France we don't see www.example.com, we see the perfect snippet www.example.com/fr/home (if you write the exact query "example" (brand name), because if you look for hybrid keywords you will always find the right page in the right language).
So the problem is just that if you type the query "example" you only see the 301 page www.exmple.com as the first result instead of www.example.com/LOCALE/home.
I have found out that in Google Search Console, inside the internal link section, www.example.com is still in first position, with 37.000 links from different subdomains.
I think that, as Rand Fishkin replied to my email, maybe Google feels free to decide what results display even if there is a redirect 301 that has been set for months. This is the reason why in France everything is ok, but in Italy or Spain is not.
Matt, what do you think about this? Sorry for length of this post but I had to explain all the aspects.
Thanks in advance!
Davide
-
Sorry are you 301 redirecting www.example.com to www.example.com/es/home in Spain? Also when are you redirecting www.example/en/home?
There's a lot of questions here. First are you using href lang tags? Second, why did you decide to redirect instead of setting up a language page?
Moz themselves (https://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo) recommend that site should not "automatically redirect a user to a different language based on location" and instead "show search engines which languages you're set up to handle using hreflang or language meta tags—bits of code that indicate which language(s) your content is available in."
Why did you decide on a redirect. Also why do you have home in the URL as well?
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
-
I have followed all the steps in google speed ranking on how to increase my website http://briefwatch.com/ speed but no good result
My website http://briefwatch.com/ has a very low-speed score on google page speed and I followed all the steps given to me still my website speed doesn't increase
Local Website Optimization | | Briefwatch0 -
SERP: From page 4 to page 1 to page 4 again -_- ...
Hi there Moz Amigos! So I have this Website: campmusicaladagio.com Right now, our main target keyword is "camp de jour gatineau". The website was on WIX before. So, I created the worpress version and redirected the domain name to the new hosting server (outside of WIX). So before doing the changes, the website was on page 4... After the changes, it went in 1 week on page 1 (lol, WIX sucks so much). After 3 weeks on page 1, it went on page 4 again... I am so confused XD like what the hell happen... Any ideas?
Local Website Optimization | | Gab-SEO0 -
Regarding rel="publisher". Company info not shown in google?
Hi, I have a google+ page https://plus.google.com/+ILoveDiamondsdotcom which is verified and link to http://www.ilovediamonds.com with rel="publisher". Why my companies info is not shown in Google search?Its been nearly 3 months.
Local Website Optimization | | ILDSEO0 -
Sub domain for geo pages
Hello Group! I have been tossing the idea in my head of using sub domains for the geo pages for each of my clients. For example: one of my clients is a lawyer in a very competitive Atlanta market http://bestdefensega.com. Can I set his geo page to woodstock.bestdefensega.com? Is this a viable option? Will I get penalized? Thoughts or suggestions always appreciated! Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | underdogmike0 -
Disproportionate Links to Home Page
I'm a professional magician and mentalist who travels nationally for corporate events, social functions, and trade shows. Unfortunately, the landing pages are all for different venues and locations, but the product stays the same. How do you recommend optimizing for somebody whose product is essentially themselves? The pages have similar content, videos, etc., so I don't want to be dinged for duplicate content.
Local Website Optimization | | KevinViner0 -
Question about landing pages
I currently have a service based website with landing pages for surrounding towns. For example the keywords targeting and url for the town are "service+town+state". I recently noticed that I am not showing up at all for "service+zip" even though I have the zips included in all the landing pages. I was told if I made more landing pages dedicated to zip I would risk killing the rank on other landing pages. Would it be advisable to make another totally different website that focuses on just the "service+zip" landing pages. The name of the page would be the same the company obviously but the phone numbers and content would be different along with domain url. Any advice or suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | Spartan221 -
Problem ranking page with a double name and an "&"
I have a client with a double name and a & like: Jones & Jones. I and using all in one SEO on a Wordpress site. Their home page is not ranking even though I have Jones, Jones & Jones and Jones and Jones listed in the keywords. Interestingly enough other pages where I did not list the home page rank when you do a serach for "Jones & Jones" I have not had this issue with other sites but have never had a name repeated and and & in between... any advice woild be appreciate.. I just signed up for a trial of MOZ...
Local Website Optimization | | ajgar0 -
Does building multiple websites hurt you seo wise? Good or bad strategy?
HI,rategy. So I spoke to a local Colorado seo company and they suggested to find whatever keywords is the most searched under my GWT's and put .com behind it and build other sites for other keywords. I was curious about this type of strategy. Does this work? This seo guy said I could just get a DBA bank account and such for each domain name etc. I am not wanting to mislead anyone, but I am curious if for the sake of promoting other services, if creating other websites with partial and EMD's are worthwhile? Another issue I worry about is if I put my companies phone number, then next thing you know there is 3 or 4 sites that use that same phone number. To me this does not build trust with Google. But being I am learning, maybe this is a common strategy, or doomed from the start. Just curious what you think. Would you build other sites to try and rank for other services? Or keep one sites and maximize it? Thank you for your thoughts. I just do not want to pay $3000 per site if it will hurt not help.
Local Website Optimization | | Berner0