301 or 302 Redirects with locale URLs?
-
Hi Mozers,
I have a bit of a tricky question I need some help answering. My agency are building a brand new website for a client of ours which means changing the domain name (yay...). So! I have my 301's all ready to go for the UK locale, however, the issue I have is that the site will also eventually have French, German and Spanish locales - but these won't be ready to go until later this year. We will be launching in just English for September. The current site already has the French and German locales on it as well.
Just to make sure I'm being clear, the site will be www.example.com for launch, but by lets say November, we will also have a www.example.com/fr/ and www.example.com/de/ site launched too.
So what do I do with the locale URLs? As I said above, the exisitng site already has the French and German locales on it, so I don't particularly want to redirect the /fr/ and /de/ URLs to the English homepage, as I will want to redirect them to the new URLs in November, and redirecting more than once is bad for SEO right?
Any ideas? Would 302s maybe be the best suggestion?
Thanks!
Virginia
-
Thanks Greg. Yeah, I didn't really want to go down the 302 route, it makes everything so much more time sensitive!
-
Thanks Rob!
I'm trying to encourage my client as much as possible to start work on the translations of the sites ASAP so that we don't end up going down the Google Translate route. I've advised against this already.
Your advise has been really helpful!
Thanks
-
Hi Virginia,
In all honesty, it's probably not going to matter very much which kind of redirect you are using. If I understand you correctly, your current redirect chain will look like:
www.example.com --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/fr --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/de --> www.example2.comThe reason redirects won't matter is that in November your second French, Dutch, etc. sites are going live. The redirects will have to be changed in November to look more like this:
www.example.com --> www.example2.com
www.example.com/fr --> www.example2.com/fr
www.example.com/de --> www.example2.com/deGiven that there is a maximum of 6-8 weeks when these redirects will be active, Google will barely have time to index them before you are changing your redirect chain all over again. In my books, that makes these redirects somewhat redundant - either way you are going to have some SEO changes occurring during that time which will probably be in a downward direction. That being said, you will want to finish up with 301 redirects since that will be the permanent fix.
However, once the new redirects are placed and indexed, you should see things return to normal and even improve if the new sites are featuring good UX. Keep in mind that any redirect is going to hurt your link profile a little bit, so you can expect to lose some rankings once your redirects are indexed.
Bottom line:
- Focus on ensuring the new sites are well put-together with good content
- Make sure proper translations are taken care of (this is a HUGE problem with multi-lingual sites)
- Try to avoid Google Translate plugin for translation services (doesn't sound like this is what you're doing)
- More importance should be placed on the UX of the site and the link profile impacts of 301 redirects
- Make sure 301 redirects are what you finish up with after the new sites go live in November
Feel free to reach out if I can be of more assistance.
Cheers,
Rob
-
Also, I understand your confusion in 301 vs 302. I mean essentially, your redirect is temporary. But 302 redirects are meant more so for short time periods, probably with a month being the max amount of time you would want to do this. You'll want to use a 301 to maintain linking power. There's no harm in doing so and then replacing it later.
-
You would remove the old 301 redirect from www.example.com/fr/ to www.example.com and add a new one from www.example.com/fr/ to www.example2.com/fr/ , then force a recrawl on your site.
-
But what will happen when I have to 301 again? Currently, I will have to redirect from www.example.com/fr/ to my new English only site which is www.example.com. But then in 3 months time, I will have a www.example2.com/fr/. So I want my old www.example.com/fr/ to redirect to my new www.example2.com/fr/ website. So how would that work?
-
Personally I think a 301 redirect would be the best.
-
I reckon you must use 301 as it seems like you're moving your sites permanently so there is no point to have 302 at all.
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
-
Do old backlinks still help with new URL with 301 redirect? Also I added the www. How does this affect it all?
I changed my URL from exampledetailing. com to exampleautodetailing. com. It is redirected with a 301. Also, it is on Squarespace AND I opted to add the www. So will the old backlinks of exampledetailing. com still help the new URL exampleautodetailing. com or do I need to try and update all the links? Also, future links, do I need to include the www. or just the root domain of exampleautodetailing. com or even the whole https://wwwexampleautodetailing. com? I believe the www is considered a sub domain and a new entity on Google, so I am not sure how that works. Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | Rmarkjr810 -
Should I avoid duplicate url keywords?
I'm curious to know Can having a keyword repeat in the URL cause any penalties ? For example xyzroofing.com xyzroofing.com/commercial-roofing xyzroofing.com/roofing-repairs My competitors with the highest rankings seem to be doing it without any trouble but I'm wondering if there is a better way. Also One of the problems I've noticed is that my /commercial-roofing page outranks my homepage for both residential and commercial search inquiries. How can this be straightened out?
Local Website Optimization | | Lyontups0 -
Is there a way to "protect" yourself from non-local traffic?
I'll start with the story, but the main question is at the bottom. Feel free to scroll down :-). I've got good news and bad news regarding a client of mine. It's a service area business that only serves one metropolitan area. We've got a great blog with really valuable content that truly helps people while firmly establishing my client's industry expertise. As a result, local traffic has spiked and the company generates more leads. So that's the good news. The bad (bad-ish?) news is that the client also gets tons of traffic from outside the service area. Not only that, people are calling them all the time who either live in a different state and don't realize that the company isn't local to them or are located out of state but are calling for free advice. On one hand, the client gets a kick out of it and thinks it's funny. On the other hand, it's annoying and they're having to train all their intake people to ask for callers' locations before they chat with them. Some things we're doing to combat this problem: 1. The title tag on our home page specifies the metro area where we're active. 2. Our blog articles frequently include lines like, "Here in [name of our city], we usually take this approach." 3. There are references to our location all over the site. 4. We've got an actual location page with our address; for that matter, the address is listed in the footer on every page. 5. The listed phone number does not begin with 800; rather, it uses the local area code. 6. All of our local business listings, including our Google My Business listing, is up to date. 7. We recently published a "Cities We Serve" area of the site with highly customized/individualized local landing pages for 12 actual municipalities in our metro region. This will take some time to cook, but hopefully that will help. "Cities We Serve" is not a primary navigation item, but the local landing pages are situated as such: "About Us > Cities We Serve > [individual city page]" **Anyway, here's my main question: **In light of all this, is there any other way to somehow shield my client from all this irrelevant traffic and protect them from time-wasting phone calls?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery0 -
Optimizing Local SEO for Two Locations
Hi there! I have a client that has just opened a 2nd location in another state. When optimizing for local I have a few questions: We're creating a landing page for each location, this will have contact information and ideally some information on each location. Any recomendations for content on these landing pages? The big question is dual city optimization. Should Include the city & state of BOTH locations in all my title tags? or should I leave that to the unique city landing pages? What other on-page optimizations should i consider across the site? Thanks! Jordan
Local Website Optimization | | WorkhorseMKT0 -
Local Service pages guide?
There are a lots of Local landing pages guide on the internet. Is there any guide for Local service pages? How to create them, what to include?
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Landing page, or redirect? Looking for feedback.
If we have a section of our site that we have branded separately from the rest of the site, does it make sense to provide a landing page on our current, high authority site that has content and links off to the separate site, or would just a domain.com/keyword redirect to the page be a better route? Does it matter? I have an idea, but I'd like to get feedback on this. We are a newspaper, http://billingsgazette.com and we have an auto branded site called http://montanawheelsforyou.com. The URL and branding is fubar. We're wondering if we can increase the ranking if we swapped out the http://billingsgazette.com/autos from a redirect to http://montanawheelsforyou.com to a landing page with content and a link to http://montanawheelsforyou.com.
Local Website Optimization | | rachaelpracht0 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0 -
Which is better for Local & National coupons --1000s of Indexed Pages per City or only a Few?
Not sure where this belongs.. I am developing a coupons site for listing local coupons and national coupons (think Valpak+RetailMeNot), eventually in all major cities, and am VERY concerned about how many internal pages to let google 'follow' for indexing, as it can exceed 10,000 per city. Is there a way to determine what the optimal approach is for internal paging/indexing BEFORE I actually launch the site (it is about ready except for this darned url question, which seems critical) Ie can I put in searchwords for google to determine which ones are most worthy to have their own indexed page? I'm a newbie sort of, so please put answer in simple terms. I'm one person and have limited funds and need to find the cheapest way to get the best organic results for each city that I cover. Is there a generic answer? One SEO firm told me the more variety the better. Another told me that simple is better, and use content on the simple pages to get variety. So confused I decided to consult the experts here! Here's the site concept: **FOR EACH CITY: ** User inputs location: Main city only(ie Houston), or 1 of 40 city regions(suburb, etc..), or zip code, or zip-street combo, OR allow gps lookup. A miles range is defaulted or chosen by the user. After search area is determined, user chooses 1 of 6 types of coupons searches: 1. Online shopping with national coupon codes, choice of 16 categories (electronics, health, clothes, etc) and 100 subcategories (computers, skin care products, mens shirts) These are national offers for chains like Kohls, which do not use the users location at all. 2. Local shopping in-store coupons, choice of same 16 categories and 100 subcategories that are used for online shopping in #1 (mom & pop shoe store or local chain offer). The results will be within the users chosen location and range. 3. Local restaurant coupons, about 60 subcategories (pizza, fast food, sandwiches). The results are again within the users chosen location and range. 4. Local services coupons, 8 categories (auto repair, activities,etc..) and around 200 subcategories (brakes, miniature golf, etc..). Results within users chosen location and range. 5. Local groceries. This is one page for the main city with coupons.com grocery coupons, and listing the main grocery stores in the city. This page does not break down by sub regions, or zip, etc.. 6. Local weekly ad circulars. This is one page for the main city that displays about 50 main national stores that are located in that main city. So, the best way to handle the urls indexed for the dynamic searches by locations, type of coupon, categories/subcats, and business pages The combinations of potential urls to index are nearly unlimited: Does the user's location matter when he searches for one thing (restaurants), but not for another (Kohls)? IF so, how do I know this? SHould I tailor indexed urls to that knowledge? Is there an advantage to having a url for NATIONAL cos that ties to each main city: shopping/Kohls vs shopping/Kohls/Houston or even shopping/Kohls/Houston-suburb? Again, I"m talking about 'follow' links for indexing. I realize I can have google index just a few main categories and subcats and not the others, or a few city regions but not all of them, etc.. while actually having internal pages for all of them.. Is it better to have 10,000 urls for say coupon-type/city-region/subcategory or just one for the main city: main-city/all coupons?, or something in between? You get the gist. I don't know how to begin to figure out the answers to these kinds of questions and yet they seem critical to the design of the site. The competition: sites like Valpak, MoneyMailer, localsaver seem to favor the 'more is better' approach, with coupons/zipcode/category or coupons/bizname/zipcode But a site like 8coupons.com appears to have no indexing for categories or subcategories at all! They have city-subregion/coupons and they have individual businesses bizname/city-subregion but as far as I see no city/category or city-subregion/category. And a very popular coupons site in my city only has maincity/coupons maincity/a few categories and maincity/bizname/coupons. Sorry this is so long, but it seems very complicated to me and I wanted to make the issue as clear as possible. Thanks, couponguy
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy1