What are the impact of doing URL Rewriting instead of 301 redirections whille optimizing a blog?
-
In WordPress, with the ALL In ONE SEO pluggingm we've optimze the permalinks to show more keewords in the URL'. What can be the impact?
-
Hi Alexandre,
You will need to look at the code in the .htaccess file generated by All in One SEO to see whether the plugin is just using URL rewriting or creating 301 redirects. As far as I am aware, that particular plugin does not have an option to manually stipulate when you wish to create a 301, but the only sure way is to check the code.
You will need to go into your wordpress /blog directory and download the .htaccess file, then open it in a text editor (like notepad). This is a separate .htaccess file, specifically relating to what happens within your wordpress installation.The one in the root folder for your site will not tell you what you are wanting to know.
I don't use All In One SEO as I prefer the Yoast plugin, but typically, what you might expect to see is code that looks something like this:
BEGIN WordPress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule>END WordPress
The key to identifying whether the plugin is using standard URL rewrites or creating a 301 Redirect is to look at the very last part of the Rule - the part that is enclosed in square brackets [ ]
A plain vanilla flavored standard URL Rewrite Rule will end with [L]
If the Rule is creating a 301 (Permanent) Redirect, it will end with [R=301,L]
and for a 302 (Temporary) Redirect, it will end with [R=302,L]
As far as your question, which I understand to be asking essentially, "what is the difference" between the two:
-
A standard URL Rewrite is simply instructing the server that any request for a certain URL should be served a different URL. As far as the search engine is concerned, nothing changes. It is simply used to change the ugly URL to a pretty URL (in your case one that contains the keywords you want).
-
A 301 redirect serves the alternative URL, but also sends a signal to the search engine that the URL requested has been permanently replaced with the one that is served. This indicates to the search engine that the requested URL should be removed from the index and replaced with the URL that is served. A 301 redirect also signals to the search engine that most of the link value being passed to the requested URL should now be passed to the URL that replaces it in the index.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
-
Hi Alexandre,
You will need to look at the code in the .htaccess file generated by All in One SEO to see whether the plugin is just using URL rewriting or creating 301 redirects. As far as I am aware, that particular plugin does not have an option to manually stipulate when you wish to create a 301, but the only sure way is to check the code.
You will need to go into your wordpress /blog directory and download the .htaccess file, then open it in a text editor (like notepad). This is a separate .htaccess file, specifically relating to what happens within your wordpress installation.The one in the root folder for your site will not tell you what you are wanting to know.
I don't use All In One SEO as I prefer the Yoast plugin, but typically, what you might expect to see is code that looks something like this:
BEGIN WordPress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule>END WordPress
The key to identifying whether the plugin is using standard URL rewrites or creating a 301 Redirect is to look at the very last part of the Rule - the part that is enclosed in square brackets [ ]
A plain vanilla flavored standard URL Rewrite Rule will end with [L]
If the Rule is creating a 301 (Permanent) Redirect, it will end with [R=301,L]
and for a 302 (Temporary) Redirect, it will end with [R=302,L]
As far as your question, which I understand to be asking essentially, "what is the difference" between the two:
-
A standard URL Rewrite is simply instructing the server that any request for a certain URL should be served a different URL. As far as the search engine is concerned, nothing changes. It is simply used to change the ugly URL to a pretty URL (in your case one that contains the keywords you want).
-
A 301 redirect serves the alternative URL, but also sends a signal to the search engine that the URL requested has been permanently replaced with the one that is served. This indicates to the search engine that the requested URL should be removed from the index and replaced with the URL that is served. A 301 redirect also signals to the search engine that most of the link value being passed to the requested URL should now be passed to the URL that replaces it in the index.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
-
I'm not 100% familiar with all that ALL IN ONE SEO PACK is doing there, but usually when you use mod_rewrite (most commonly that I've seen amongst SEO's to rewrite to 'www'), it IS a 301 redirect.
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
-
Change URL or use Canonicals and Redirects?
We just completed a conclusive a/b test on a client's landing page. The new page saw a 30% bump in conversions, yay! Now what? Option 1: Change the url of the new page to that of the old page, retire the old page. Option 2: Redirect the old page and anything that was pointing to it to the new page, make the new page the canonical. I'm afraid of option 1 because I think Google's WTF penalty will be a bit harsher than option 2, but I wanted to sanity check that here. Any thoughts or experienced advice would be very appreciated!
Technical SEO | | LindsayDayton0 -
.aspx 301 redirects on Business Catalyst
Hi I am have moved my website from .aspx to business catalyst. I have found out (when the site already migrated!) that Business Catalyst does not support .aspx 301 redirects. On a previous post from 2012 (https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/aspx-files-will-simply-not-work-as-redirects) , someone has recommended a java script re direct. I have tried this but google search console is classing this as a 404 resulting in no link juice and my website dropping pages on google. I have tried to do 301 redirects at my server level but wont work. Anyone know a solution? Thanks in advance Keith
Technical SEO | | EntertainmentIdeas0 -
Panda Cleanup - Removing Old Blog Posts, Let Them 404 or 301 to Main Blog Page?
tl;dr... Removing old blog posts that may be affected by Panda, should we let them 404 or 301 to the Blog? We have been managing a corporate blog since 2011. The content is OK but we've recently hired a new blogger who is doing an outstanding job, creating content that is very useful to site visitors and is just on a higher level than what we've had previously. The old posts mostly have no comments and don't get much user engagement. I know Google recommends creating great new content rather than removing old content due to Panda concerns but I'm confident we're doing the former and I still want to purge the old stuff that's not doing anyone any good. So let's just pretend we're being dinged by Panda for having a large amount of content that doesn't get much user engagement (not sure if that's actually the case, rankings remain good though we have been passed on a couple key rankings recently). I've gone through Analytics and noted any blog posts that have generated at least 1 lead or had at least 20 unique visits all time. I think that's a pretty low barrier and everything else really can be safely removed. So for the remaining posts (I'm guessing there are hundreds of them but haven't compiled the specific list yet), should we just let them 404 or do we 301 redirect them to the main blog page? The underlying question is, if our primary purpose is cleaning things up for Panda specifically, does placing a 301 make sense or would Google see those "low quality" pages being redirected to a new place and pass on some of that "low quality" signal to the new page? Is it better for that content just to go away completely (404)?
Technical SEO | | eBoost-Consulting0 -
Which way round to 301 redirect?
Hi We have just added a new layered navigation menu to our website. so for example we had Before : www.tidy-books.co.uk/chidlrens-bookcases (this has the seo juice) And Now: http://www.tidy-books.co.uk/childrens-bookcases-book-storage/childrens-bookcases Might be a stupid question but do I redirect the 'now' url to the 'before' url or the the other way round I look forward to hearing your thoughts Thanks
Technical SEO | | tidybooks0 -
Best way to redirect friendly URL in direct mail ?
Hi, When we do direct mail to our customers talking about a specific product we sell we usually put a link in the letter so the customer can go directly to the product just by typing a short link, something like:
Technical SEO | | BigJoe
www.example.com/blue-widget This link will then re-direct to:
www.example.com/shop/product/brand-name-big-blue-widget-with-green-ends-200m-50diameter.php Which we are happy with at the moment but I want to check we are doing it correctly in terms of redirects, we currently re-direct it using .htaccess like:
Redirect /blue-widget http://www.example.com/shop/product/brand-name-big-blue-widget-with-green-ends-200m-50diameter.php This re-directs it as a 302 but should it be done as a 301 ? I am not sure why we did 302's to start with but I am thinking they should be 301's, I think it might have been because the URL we were redirecting from was imaginary ? Also should we use the Redirect line in the .htaccess or should we do each one with a RewriteRule ? Thanks BigJoe0 -
What if my host doesn't have the 301 redirect feature?
Ok, So i need to do a 301 redirect but my host doesn't have the feature with htaccess. I currently use yahoo. What are my options?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
301 redirects twice
We currently have some 301 redirects set up on our site however sometimes a page will redirect twice before reaching the final location. Is this OK from an SEO perspective to have a page redirect twice or should we concentrate on reducing it to one?
Technical SEO | | JohnHillman0 -
301-redirect
Hi My website is fairly new and i wasnt aware of the difference btw 'website.com' and 'www.website.com' when i started up. It doesnt matter which one i use as long as i am consistent right ? Most of my ingoing links are to mainpage on 'website.com'. I have som ingoing links to 'www.website.com' but also some to 'www.website.com/brandname'. is it enough to 301-redir 'www.website.com' to 'website.com' or does it need to be done on several levels ? I need to have someone do the redirect for me - how can i check its working when its done ? Dan Lærum
Technical SEO | | danlae0