Just to be clear, this is for one unique page on a website. Also, please see my diagram attached.
Let's say that a page's URL was originally /original. So, you optimize the page for a new keyword (keyword 1), and therefore change the URL to /keyword-1. A 301 redirect would then be placed...
- /original > /keyword-1
However, let's say 6 months down the road you realize that the keyword you optimized the page for (keyword 1) just isn't working. You research for a new keyword, and come up with (keyword 2). So, you'd like to rename the page's URL to /keyword-2.
After placing a redirect from the current page (keyword 1) to the 'now' new page (keyword 2), it would look like this...
- /original > /keyword-1 > /keyword-2
We know that making a server go through more than one redirect slows the server load time, and even more 'link-juice' is lost in translation.
Because of this, would it make sense to remove the original redirect and instead place redirects like this?
- /original > /keyword-2
- /keyword-1 > /keyword-2
To me, this would make the most sense for preserving SEO. However, I've read that removing 301 redirects can cause user issues due to browsers caching the now 'removed' redirect. Even if this is ideal for SEO, could it be more work than it's worth?
Does anyone have any experience/input on this? If so, I greatly appreciate your time!
