How do you explain the problem with several re-directs to a client?

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I have a client who has done a lot of link building, and just migrated his site from an old platform to a more seo friendly one, but now he is moving pages on the new site.

Old Site --> (301 re-direct) --> New Site --> (301 re-direct) --> Changed Page -->(301 re-direct) Changed page again, etc

All his changes are making a lot of etra work for me every month and I feel he is wasting a lot of link juice,

How Would you explain to the client why they shouldn't be using several re-directs?

What can I do to make sure that they keep as much link juice as possible?

[RyanKent]

I have never worked for Google or any other search engine so I want to make it clear the below is my best understanding of how the process works, and I use it to base my actions upon. I feel my understanding is valid but the examples could probably use a bit of work. I am always willing to entertain other ideas.

Crawlers find and explore links. They capture data and record it in a database. That data is then processed by the search engine. If Page is A indexed, the URL will show in SERPs as Page A. If later you 301 redirect Page A to Page B, when the crawler discovers the 301 redirect the search engine will update the URL in SERPS to Page B. With me so far?

Later you decide to 301 redirect Page B to Page C. When the search engine recognizes the redirect (i.e. the crawler discovers it) the URL will once again be updated in SERPs to Site C. Any instances of the Page A or Page B URLs in the search engines database would be displayed as Page C in SERPs.

Despite the search engine's database having the correct URL to display in SERPs, crawlers are not provided this information. As long as link exists and a crawler can find it, the crawler will attempt to follow it, subject to normal factors such as nofollow, crawl budget, etc. If you modify the initial redirect from Page A to Page C, the crawler will detect the new header change and the search engine will update their records accordingly.

The above information was shared with respect to the appearance of the URL in SERPs, but it should be identical for the backlinks as well. Rather then forwarding the backlinks from Page A to Page B, those links would be directly forwarded to Page C.

So instead of it re-directing  from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C. Is this better? if so why?

If you modify the existing redirect to go from Page A to Page C, it is better because it is a single redirect. It is better for your servers (less redirects to process), better for users (quicker page loads), better for you (less redirects to manage and less opportunities for something to go wrong) and therefore better for search engines. You are rewarded for this improvement with your link juice flow being stronger.

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Thanks Ryan,

Great Answer and illustration!

A follow up questions, what happens if you go back and change the old 301 re-directs?

So instead of it re-directing  from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C.

Is this better? if so why?

[RyanKent]

Multiple redirects is a really bad idea and should be corrected whenever possible. The consideration I ask clients to understand is how multiple redirects amplify the loss of link juice. The numbers I will use in the below example are simply how I explain it when asked, and I don't have any solid math to back it up. As we all know, the exact process is kept secret.

Redirect #1 = lose 10% link juice

Redirect #2 = 1st link loses 10%, 2nd link loses 10%x2=20%, total 30% loss

Redirect #3 = 1st link loses 10%, 2nd link loses 20%, 3rd link loses 30% = 60% loss

Redirect #4 = 100% loss.

Again the numbers are likely not that dramatic, but it helps get site owners out of the mindset of "well, a 301 loses just a drop of link juice so 3 or 4 redirects doesn't lose much". We know the trust factors for a site rapidly diminish in an amplified manner a few links away from the source. We know PR on a site evaporates almost completely 4 links into a site. Even top PR sites like DMOZ and Yahoo directory have pages not indexed because there is not enough PR passed through their links to pages on their site which are deep. It is logical to think this same concept applies to redirects. It is another form of following links.