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Ah sorry about missing the bracket.
Yeah the ? query has to come at the very end, otherwise it interrupts the flow of the URL... So it should be C.com/blogpost-20?redirect=true
There is lots you can do, but I understand that it may be a bit more work than you planned 
P.S. Ensure that you have rel="canonical" on the new URL because otherwise you won't be getting proper SEO for the pages with the ?redirect=true
Hi William,
Shouldn't be too hard. In that 301 redirect, add a GET query.
i.e. A question mark after the URL in the redirect that says something like:
http://www.new-url.com?redirect=true
What this will mean is that on your NEW site, you can add a query like (if using PHP):
if(isset($_GET['redirect')){
if($_GET['redirect'] == 'true'){
?>
You were redirected!
}
}
Decoding this, it basically checks for a question mark in the url, and if it finds one, it adds the div with the class "redirected" and says something!
Let me know if that didn't make sense!
Hi msquare,
According to Identity on a blog post about multiple sitemaps:
It is still just one URL, but the engines prefer to not have URLs duplicated across sitemaps.
In this way, you are sending a lower quality signal about your sitemaps. Certainly this can happen, like any duplication, but if it is rampant, hundreds-thousands of URLs duplicated across multiple sitemaps might lead the engines to believe that your are trying to manipulate them in some way and I wouldn't be surprised if they trusted the sitemaps less, which may defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.
I would argue the same. If you have two sitemaps with lots of similar content then it can be seen as inaccurate which is contrary to the point of the sitemap in the first place.
Have a read of that article too that I linked above, because there's a good introduction to multiple sitemaps and indexes, so that you can avoid as many problems as you can!
According to SEOMoz's article on redirection, 301 redirects DO pass on the page authority ("about 90-99%") however it will take time. This number varies depending on who you listen to, but there is evidence that it does eventually pass through Google.
Depending on how often your pages get crawled, this may take a while but if you're not going for rankings, this won't affect too much.
NoFollow links are highly beneficial, if you take Rand Fishkin's point of view (which I'd strongly recommend).
Basically a NoFollow link comes from forums, comments and other online activity which shows that not only are you purely trying to build backlinks, you're actively participating in the community.
Obviously Follow are essential for your SEO "juice", but a combination of NoFollows shows that you're not only fetching for rankings, your website actually has relevance to the wider community. You may not get a direct 1:1 benefit like a Follow link, but Google can still see the DA and PA that a NoFollow is coming from, and can index that just as readily (even if it is in a completely different way).
P.S. This is a somewhat contested opinion, so I'd add the disclaimer that this is what I think.
NoFollow links are highly beneficial, if you take Rand Fishkin's point of view (which I'd strongly recommend).
Basically a NoFollow link comes from forums, comments and other online activity which shows that not only are you purely trying to build backlinks, you're actively participating in the community.
Obviously Follow are essential for your SEO "juice", but a combination of NoFollows shows that you're not only fetching for rankings, your website actually has relevance to the wider community. You may not get a direct 1:1 benefit like a Follow link, but Google can still see the DA and PA that a NoFollow is coming from, and can index that just as readily (even if it is in a completely different way).
P.S. This is a somewhat contested opinion, so I'd add the disclaimer that this is what I think.
Hi msquare,
According to Identity on a blog post about multiple sitemaps:
It is still just one URL, but the engines prefer to not have URLs duplicated across sitemaps.
In this way, you are sending a lower quality signal about your sitemaps. Certainly this can happen, like any duplication, but if it is rampant, hundreds-thousands of URLs duplicated across multiple sitemaps might lead the engines to believe that your are trying to manipulate them in some way and I wouldn't be surprised if they trusted the sitemaps less, which may defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.
I would argue the same. If you have two sitemaps with lots of similar content then it can be seen as inaccurate which is contrary to the point of the sitemap in the first place.
Have a read of that article too that I linked above, because there's a good introduction to multiple sitemaps and indexes, so that you can avoid as many problems as you can!
Hi William,
Shouldn't be too hard. In that 301 redirect, add a GET query.
i.e. A question mark after the URL in the redirect that says something like:
http://www.new-url.com?redirect=true
What this will mean is that on your NEW site, you can add a query like (if using PHP):
if(isset($_GET['redirect')){
if($_GET['redirect'] == 'true'){
?>
You were redirected!
}
}
Decoding this, it basically checks for a question mark in the url, and if it finds one, it adds the div with the class "redirected" and says something!
Let me know if that didn't make sense!
Ah sorry about missing the bracket.
Yeah the ? query has to come at the very end, otherwise it interrupts the flow of the URL... So it should be C.com/blogpost-20?redirect=true
There is lots you can do, but I understand that it may be a bit more work than you planned