Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What is the difference between 301 redirects and backlinks?
-
i have seen some 301 redirects on my site billsonline, can anyone please explain the difference between backlinks and 301 redirects, i have read some articles where the writer was stating that 301 are not good for website.
-
301 redirects and backlinks serve different purposes in the realm of website management and SEO.
A 301 redirect is a method used to permanently redirect one URL to another. It's commonly used when a page has been moved or removed, ensuring that visitors and search engines are automatically directed to the new URL. Essentially, it's a way to preserve a page's ranking and traffic when its URL changes.
On the other hand, backlinks are incoming links from one webpage to another. They are crucial for SEO as they signal to search engines that other websites find your content valuable enough to link to. Backlinks are like votes of confidence for your website, and quality backlinks from reputable sites can significantly improve your site's search engine rankings.
-
@jackwill1234 said in What is the difference between 301 redirects and backlinks?:
Could someone explain the difference between backlinks and 301 redirects for my website, www-homeworkify.live ? I've come across articles suggesting that 301 redirects might not be advantageous for websites, and I'd like to understand more.
Sure! Backlinks are links from other websites to yours, helping to boost your site's authority and visibility in search engine rankings. 301 redirects, on the other hand, permanently direct users and search engines from one URL to another. While backlinks improve your site's reputation, 301 redirects are useful for preserving SEO value when you've changed a URL or merged two websites. Both are valuable tools, but they serve different purposes in optimizing your website's performance.
-
Could someone explain the difference between backlinks and 301 redirects for my website, www-homeworkify.live ? I've come across articles suggesting that 301 redirects might not be advantageous for websites, and I'd like to understand more.
-
301 Redirects:
A 301 redirect is a method used to permanently redirect one URL to another. It's an HTTP status code that indicates that a webpage has been permanently moved to a new location. When a user or a search engine bot tries to access the original URL, they are automatically redirected to the new URL specified in the 301 redirect.
301 redirects are commonly used when a website undergoes a redesign, changes its domain name, or moves content to a new location. They help preserve SEO value by transferring the ranking signals from the old URL to the new one.
Backlinks:Backlinks, also known as inbound links or incoming links, are hyperlinks on other websites that point back to your website. They are a crucial component of search engine optimization (SEO) and are considered a vote of confidence from one site to another.
Backlinks are valuable because search engines like Google use them as one of the factors to determine the authority, relevance, and credibility of a website. Websites with a higher number of quality backlinks tend to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Backlinks can be obtained through various methods such as creating high-quality content, outreach campaigns, guest blogging, and participating in online communities. -
A 301 redirect is a method used to permanently redirect one URL to another, often utilized during website migrations or when a page is no longer active. Backlinks, on the other hand, are incoming links from other websites to a specific webpage, which can influence a site's search engine ranking and authority. While both serve to redirect traffic, they operate in distinct ways: 301 redirects manage URL redirection, while backlinks contribute to a site's off-page SEO efforts by enhancing its credibility and visibility.
-
301 redirects and backlinks serve different purposes in website management. A 301 redirect is a server-side instruction that permanently redirects users and search engines from one URL to another, preserving SEO value and ensuring seamless navigation. Backlinks, on the other hand, are inbound links from other websites to your website that influence search engine rankings and demonstrate trustworthiness and authority in your niche. 301 redirects manage URL changes and website rebuilds, while backlinks contribute to off-page SEO and domain authority.
-
I've noticed some 301 redirects on my website, LiteblueInsights. Can someone please clarify the distinction between backlinks and 301 redirects? I've read articles suggesting that 301 redirects aren't beneficial for websites.
-
A 301 redirect is the header response sent when a page does not exist or not required and the redirected page is loaded instead. Typically a 301 redirect is created when a page is taken down. A 301 redirect is not bad for a site. Redirect chains can be bad - so 301 to 301 to 301 etc.
What you want to look at is if you have 301s in your menus, homepage or main content linking to main pages. These links should be either removed or updated to the new URL. There should be no 301s here, it's good housekeeping.
A backlink is an link from an external site linking to a page on your site.
-
I believe the below reply that is explained by Mr Victor, is absolutely correct.
-
The redirects are intended to keep link juice when migrating to a new domain. Actually they just help the existing users find the new domain. If there are redirects to your domain from unrelated websites the Google bot should be smart enough to ignore them. That's why it's better to have backlinks from unrelated sources than redirects.
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
-
Reusing an already 301 redirected URL for a very important keyword
I have a question about reusing an already 301 redirected URL Till now I never reused an URLs that has been already redirected with a 301 redirect. However, I just started working on a website where in past they created a lot of 301 redirects without thinking about the future, and now certain URLs, that are currently redirected with a 301, would be very useful (exact match) and needed (for some of the most important keywords for this specific business), to maintain an optimal, homogeneous and "beautiful" URL structure. Has any of you ever reused a URL that was previously redirected with a 301 redirect? If yes what are your experiences with it? Can content on the reused URL (that was previously 301 redirected and than the redirect removed) normally rank if the page is reestablished and the redirect is removed (and you do great content, on page, internal linking, backlinking, .... ) or is such an URL risky / not recommended / "burned" forever and not recommended to be reused again... especially for very important keywords since it present the exact match ?! Thank you very much for all your help! Regards
Technical SEO | | moz46y0 -
How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?
I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new. In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL. What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side? Thanks
Technical SEO | | CitimarineMoz0 -
1000 Pages on old website. What to do with the 301 redirects for this domain?
Hi Moz Community, I have a 301 redirect question... I just acquired an old domain: Totally in my niche Domain is 14 years old Website exists of 1000 pages Great amount of backlinks Website is offline since about 2 weeks Will place a new website online asap with new url structure For the 50 best scoring pages I wrote a new, but fully comparable/related article. I will put a 301 redirect from those old to the new pages. My question: What to do with the 950 other url's? Should I put a 301 redirect to the homepage? Should I forward those pages to the 404 page? Should I divide the 950 url's with a 301 redirect to the 50 new ones? Another solution maybe? Any idea what would be the best solution so we can save as much Google juice as possible? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | snorkel0 -
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!
Technical SEO | | Liggins0 -
Best Practice on 301 Redirect - Images
We have two sites that sell the same products. We have decided to retire one of the sites as we'd like to focus on one property. I know best practice is to redirect apples to apples, which in our case is easily done since the sites sold the same thing. www.SiteABC.com/ProductA can be redirected to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA. My question is how far does that thinking go regarding images? Each product has a main product page, of course, and then up to 6 images in some cases. Is it necessary to redirect www.SiteABC.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg? Or can they all be redirected to just the product page?
Technical SEO | | Natitude0 -
Creating a CSV file for uploading 301 redirect URL map
Hi if i'm bulk uploading 301 redirects whats needed to create a csv file? is it just a case of creating an excel spreadsheet & have the old urls in column A and new urls in column B and then just convert to csv and upload ? or do i need to put in other details or paremeters etc etc ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
How do I fix a 301 Redirect Loop?
Saturday I waas doing some correcting of some duplicate titles, including nofollowing tags, etc. (my main problem was duplicate titles due to tags and categories being indexed). Now this morning I see that one of my pages refuses to load, citing a 301 redirect loop. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/feeding/switching-baby-formula/ Originally, the page was posted under the wrong category. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/uncategorized/switching-baby-formula I resaved it under the correct category (feeding) and now it won't load. Can someone help me figure out how to correct this mess? Thanks so much Heather
Technical SEO | | Gotmoxie0 -
Can you 301 redirect a page to an already existing/old page ?
If you delete a page (say a sub department/category page on an ecommerce store) should you 301 redirect its url to the nearest equivalent page still on the site or just delete and forget about it ? Generally should you try and 301 redirect any old pages your deleting if you can find suitable page with similar content to redirect to. Wont G consider it weird if you say a page has moved permenantly to such and such an address if that page/address existed before ? I presume its fine since say in the scenario of consolidating departments on your store you want to redirect the department page your going to delete to the existing pages/department you are consolidating old departments products into ?
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0