Too many 301 redirects to home page - is this possible?
-
If a site has a bunch of 404’s that are basically old URL’s that no longer work and point to pages or documents that don’t exist anymore - Can someone clarify if it’s a problem when fixing a bunch of these 404’s to point them all to the home page?
so if there is not really anywhere else that is applicable for the old broken URL, is it really a problem to 301 old pages to the site home page?
I have read some different things on this recently on some different sites, so I just wondered what the latest thinking on this was….thanks...
-
The answer is NO, there is no inherent risk of ranking loss or credibility loss when redirecting old URL's. Think of it like the post office, lets say you move a lot and as a result you have become very familiar with their change of address form. The post office isn't going to delay the delivery of your mail just because your Dads in the military or your Mom keeps moving to escape old flames. Relocating is a part of life and when it comes down to it the Post Office and Google, for that matter, thank you for 301'ing your mail so it doesn't stack up and clutter the Index with undeliverables.
-
Found it! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use Check out the section "Redirecting all pages in one go to a single URL" "Although the intention may not be manipulative, there have been cases of people doing this to try and consolidate all the link juice from loads of pages into one page, to make that page stronger. This can sometimes put up a flag to Google who may come and take a closer look at whats going on." This post does also come with a Matt Cutts video discussing this. Hope that helps!
-
I swear I read in a recent post that Google frowns on large redirect to your homepage... Am I crazy??? I tried to find where I read this but can't remember. Anyone? Bueler?
-
No not at all. I do this for all old product that have fallen off. I redirect them back to their category page (not the home page).
I would however, not try to do this in the htaccess file, but within the head of php page. This automates the process and keeps you from having to manually change the htaccess file often and gives you a way to evaluate the URL to determine the best place to redirect to.
I hope that helps.
-
I took over a website once and we redid it. The content was old and stale, a review site of products years old. We did a new url structure and new content, but we didn't redo the content of the old reviews. There were hundreds of URLs that got redirected to the home page. I pretty much took the entire old url structure and sent that whole directory to the home page. I only pulled out a few that had new counterparts. Hasn't harmed us, top 5 ranking. I wouldn't worry about it. Google hates it when you get lots of 301s from other domains, as in you bought up a bunch of old expired ones and redirected all their urls to your home page. That would be a bad idea. Internal links I don't think matter at all from an seo perspective.
-
Hmmm, hard to say exactly but maybe if we look at the http status codes and their meanings it may help you to make a more informed decision.
The status codes are detailed in full here:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.htmlIn brief, they are as follows:
301 - the requested resource has moved permanently
404 - the requested resource is unavailable
410 - the requested resource has gone
So really, just use common sense. If the pages have an alternative then 301 the missing page to it's closest alternative. If the pages have no alternative and they get many requests then, they should have an alternative so create one, or, link it to the homepage - maybe. If the pages have lots of inbound links and have no replacement, create one, or 301 them to the homepage.
Generally, if the page has no real alternative, does little traffic and has no links then allow it to 404 but use a good custom 404 page to help signpost them on their way.
You also have the 410 gone code but in practice, I have never seen anyone use that so a combination of 301 & 404 pages with a liberal sprinkling of common sense is the best approach.
Some great resources here:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/http-status-codes
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo
Hope it helps
Marcus
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Site has 302 redirects for HTTP to HTTPS when it should be 301
Hey all, In the latest Moz crawl, certain pages on our website have shown as having 302 redirects for the http to https, but not all. There should be a 301 solution, but wanted to see if anyone had any advice or guidance. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Julzseo1 -
How many keywords for home page?
I am a close up magician based in the UK and have just signed up for Moz Analytics and looking through the info now. The first issue was that it says my home page had an F grade for "table magician" My home page is not really optimised for table magician but Moz is suggesting I do. So my question is do I go with Moz and adjust my home page to match even though I have a dedicated page for table magician. Is this title tag for the home page too much. Roger Lapin: Wedding Magician - Close up Magician - Table Magician ?? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rnperki
Roger
http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk0 -
Home page cannibal
I was wondering if others had the same problem I have. It appears Google loves that home page too much and I'm having a difficult time getting it to rank the page I really want. And that happens if a keyword I want to rank for only appears on the home page one time with a keyword density of .1%. Take vanillaqueen.com for example. The home page ranks on the first page for "bulk vanilla beans" and not http://vanillaqueen.com/shop/category/vanilla-beans/ or http://vanillaqueen.com/five-reasons-why-buying-bulk-vanilla-makes-good-sense/ And I'll add another one that I recently took on. This is a personal injury attorney in a large city so there is a ton of competition who have been doing SEO for a very long time. (Fortunately he also does business and civil litigation law to keep the business going). Last month, according to webmaster tools, he got a couple of clicks (hey, it's something!) on "personal injury attorney [his city]" on page 2 in the SERPS, but it was his home page. http://bit.ly/1Gvumlm **In this case I don't mind people landing on the home page, but does the fact that another page that is much better optimized for those keywords indicate a penalty on that page? And is his rank lower because the better page is not ranking and Google has to find the next best thing in the home page? ** Has anyone else experienced that and what have you done to get Google to not go home? P.S. The law site is a huge challenge because of the competition. Any help you pros out there can offer to get this underdog out of hiding will be much appreciated. We're starting a smart, strategic content marketing plan now that I'm very excited about.
On-Page Optimization | | katandmouse1 -
Page Analysis - Helping Product Pages Outrank Search Results Pages
Hi! We have a lot of our search results pages that have been indexed and outrank our product pages and in some instance the actual product pages barely show up at all. Here is an example query that includes our brand name: http://goo.gl/cgB6W So, we have loads of actual product pages, video pages, etc that should be showing up here, but are not and this is just one example. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of these Search Results pages out there and utlimately we would love to de-index them altogether, but it's going to have to be carefully done. So, was wondering if anyone would want to check out one of our product pages and give any feedback as to what we could change to possibly improve rank or to make them more search friendly or hopefully to help them rise above these indexed search results pages? Here is an example product page: http://goo.gl/2R4IT Thanks!! Craig
On-Page Optimization | | TheCraig0 -
Page Title
My website was hacked last November and then again last week. Prior to the hacking we were at number one in Google.co.uk for our main search term "nile cruises' for years. After last November's hacking we dropped to about position 4 and after last week we are at position 7. Ima rebuilding the lost data and I am having to create new Title and Description meta data for each of the indexed pages. I am taking the opportunity to try and ensure my titles and descriptions are good and the correct length, etc but wondered about the best title format. I set our home page title over the weekend as: Nile Cruise | Leading ABTA & ATOL Bonded UK Nile Cruise Specialist I was going to try and cover 3 keyphrases in the title like this: Nile Cruise | Nile Cruises | Nile Cruise Bargains But I thought that might look a bit spammy because the 3 phrases are very similar. I wondered what anyone else might suggest? Thanks, Colin
On-Page Optimization | | NileCruises0 -
Too many On-Page Links warning + Javascript Menu
We do have javascript menus on each page. These are used by a visitor to contact a specific office in a specif city. Could this be where all these links are being counted? I don't see them elsewhere? What about links that are in the footer? They actually link to the same pages as the menus, but are just straight links.
On-Page Optimization | | Stevej240 -
Authority of a page
What factors contribute towards the authority of a page ? No. of links to a page ?
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_20050 -
E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.
Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | MikeDelaCruz770