Do I need to do a 301, as well as adding re-write rules on Apache
-
I'm sure this has probably been asked somewhere before...
We're implementing a URL re-write rule to convert non dub pages to the www. subdomain and also removing all trailing slashes as part of a basic canonicalisation exercise.
The question is, as well as doing the URL rewrites within htaccess, should I also 301 those duplicate pages or does the URL rewrite do the job on it's own?
Thanks mozzers.
-
Eric's answer was perfect. After launch, I also do a site:nameofdomain.com and click on a random sampling of links to make sure the rules work perfectl (this is more useful if the page name changes). Good luck!
-
The URL rewrite "should" take care of it. So, when you enter www.domain.com/page.html it would 301 redirect to domain.com/page.html (or vice versa). Once you have the rewrites in place, then test them by going to a page and see if it redirects properly. Use a http server header checker to see if it's serving up a 301.
Even though the internal links may be using your preferred domain, then you'll want to make sure that anyone requesting (or linking to) the "wrong version" will be 301 redirected to the right version of the page.
Also, I would go into Google Search Console and make sure you tell Google which version is your preferred version: the www or non-www version of your site.
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
-
How long should I keep the 301 redirect file
We've setup an new site and many pages don't exist anymore (clean up done). But for many of them we have new pages with new url's. We've monitored the 404 and have now many URL's redirected with 301 (apache file). How long should we keep this in place? Checking all links manually to see of new url is in place of the old url (in google) is too much work. tx!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KBC0 -
Added sub-folder to GWT no data?
Added sub-folder to GWT no data? Hi guys, I've added a sub-folder to GWT: domain.com.au/us/ about 5 days ago. I have no yet received any data via GWT around the subfolder. The main domain domain.com.au has been added separately and is receiving traffic. Any ideas why i'm not seeing data for the sub-folder above domain.com.au/us/ I simply added it as a new property in GWT. Thankyou.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Help needed on HTTPS
Hi Can anyone help me. I need some help with some example of large e-commerce sites going to https. Ideally these need to be e-commerce sites but any large site will be great, so that I can show the impact. The site can be based anywhere in the world, its more the impact I am after. Thanks Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Does Unique Content Need to be Located Higher on my webpages?
I have 1 page that ranks well with unique written content located high up on page (http://www.honoluluhi5.com/new-condos-in-honolulu/). I struggle to rank for 200+ other pages where unique content requires scrolling (ex: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-homes/). I am thinking to do as follows: Change layout of all my pages to have unique content higher on page When users are on my site (not coming from search engines) and use my search filters, then users will land on pages where unique content is lower on page (so keep this layout: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu-homes/). I will then add these pages to my robots.txt file so they do not show in Google's index. Reason: unique content lower on page offers best user experience. With unique content higher on page, I expect bounce rate to increase about 10% (based on the 1 page I have with unique content higher), but I think it is worthwhile, as I am sure search engines will start having my pages rank higher.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
301 and Canonical - is using both counterproductive
A site lost a great deal of traffic in July, which appears to be from an algorithmic penalty, and hasn't recovered yet. It appears several updates were made to their system just before the drop in organic results. One of the issues noticed was that both uppercase and lowercase urls existed. Example urls are: www.domain.com/product123
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK717
www.domain.com/Product123 To clean this up, a 301 redirect was implemented a few months ago. Another issue found was that many product related urls had a parameter added to the url for a tracking purpose. To clean this up, the tracking parameters were removed from the system and a canonical tag was implemented as these pages were also found in Google's index. The tag forced a page such as www.domain.com/product123?ref=topnav to be picked up as www.domain.com/product123. So now, there is a 301 to address the upper and lowercase urls and a canonical tag to address the parameters from creating more unnecessary urls. A few questions here: -Is this redunant and can cause confusion to the serps to have both a canonical and 301 redirect on the same page? -Both the 301 and canonical tag were implemented several months ago, yet Google's index is still showing them. Do these have to be manually removed with GWT individually since they are not in a subfolder or directory? Looking forward to your opinions.0 -
Multiple 301 Redirects on the same domain name
Hi, I'd appreciate some advice ont he below. I have a website, say www.site.co.uk that has just been redesigned using a new CMS. Previously it had URLs in the format /article.php?id=123, the new site has more friendly urls in the format /articles/article-slug. I have been able to import the old articles into my CMS using the same article IDs and I have created a unique slug for each post. So now in my database, I have the article id (from the querystring) and a slug. However, I have hundreds of old URLs indexed by Google in the format /article.php?id=123 and need to redirect these. My plan was to do the following. 301 Redirect /article.php?id=123 to an intermediate page, in this case /redirect/123. On this intermediate page I would do a database lookup for the article slug, based on the ID from the querystring, create a new URL and perform a second 301 redirect to my new URL E.g. /articles/article-slug-from-database. Whilst this works and keeps the site usable for visitors the two 301 redirects do worry me, as I don;t want Google indexing lots of /redirect/[article id] urls. The other solution is to generate hundreds of htaccess redirect rules that map old url to the new url. The first solution is much cleaner, but the two 301's worry me. Will Google work this out on it's own, is there a better way? Any advice is much appreciated. Cheers Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AmyCrompton1 -
Not allowing me 301 Redirect
I am trying redirect my old site to my new site, both on the same domain. For one reason or another, I am having a hard time redirecting the some of the old urls to the new site. Please let me know how I can fix this issue. Below are the following old urls that are not allowing me to redirect: <colgroup><col width="636"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/melia-caribe-tropical-announces-fall-promotion.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/melia-international-brand-overhaul.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/accommodations/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/dining/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/entertainment/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/events/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/flintstones/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/beach.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/dining.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/pools.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/ |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/melia-caribe-tropical-announces-fall-promotion.html |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/melia-international-brand-overhaul.html |0 -
Video SERP assistance needed
I'm working on a site with a great deal of video content. We also have a youTube page. I've recently created a site map and submitted to Google. I really want for our videos to show up in our search results, but so far, nothings happening. Site: www.roydwyer.com Any advise to what's missing? Thanx in advance! annular-tear.php
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aaronetics0