How long does it take for rank to return after 301?
-
Hello all -- just looking for those who have implemented site-wide 301 redirects due to a domain change. I am about 2 weeks into mine and am seeing minimum 5, maximum 21 spot drops in many of my targeted terms. My pages have strong GPR, with most being 3 or higher.
Anyone out there been able to track a ballpark of when rank will return? The 301 redirects were implemented correctly, with 1 to 1 setups in most cases. Google has updated the listings with the new domain name, but I'm taking a huge rank hit.
Any experience on how long I can expect (I know it's different for every situation) would be great!
Thanks.
-
Hi Robert -
Yes we did it on the URL level, but the client is using IIS as opposed to Apache, so we had to figure out a way to use a global 301 that trickled down to the page level. Each page is redirecting to it's new home on the server side (www.oldsite-innerpage.com to www.newsite-innerpage.com). We actually ended up with a global re-write rule that still allowed it to be a page-level redirect. Eventually we will be going into IIS and writing in server-side 301's for each individual page. It's been 2 weeks so I'm hoping to see return of rank here in 2 weeks time or so. Thanks for your input.
-
Bandicoot,
From what you have written I am assuming your "Site-wide 301 redirects" means you did it from url to url and not from home page to home page or root to root, etc.
We made the mistake of assuming on a site a few months ago and could not understand what happened. Mozzers pointed out we did not go url to url and we made the change. Most were cautious suggesting it would take 4 to 6 weeks, but we actually saw about 90% within 3 weeks of the change. This was a change from NamedLawfirm.com to City-Bankruptcy-Attorneys.com so I was impressed with the rapidity.Good luck
-
I think that was a very general comment, as some pages are crawled very rarly, as for passing pr and signals, it has been confirmed by Matt Cutts that 301's leak goodness
http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml
-
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012409.html --"From Google: 301s pass PR and related signals appropriately. Usually takes a couple of weeks for things to smooth out, though."
-
i would give it another 2 weeks at least, but as i suggested, it may not get back to where it was as a 301 is not as fgood as a direct link
-
Hi Adrian - thanks for your reply. for client privacy purposes I cannot reveal the site.
-
I'd have to say that when we went through our domain change, we forgot to initialize the 301 redirect so we got penalized for 6 weeks until we caught it; however, it's not like we had some big stuff between newglobalventures.com and www.newglobalventures.com.
Just out of curiousity which is the site that you're experiencing loss on?
-Adrian
-
no, the old site is not showing on the SERP anymore, and no, there were no 301's to the old site
-
Yes i have done this a few times, and i suggest at least a month or more. 301's do not pass all goodness to the new page they leak a little each time. If you had 301's on the old site already you may of lost them or they maybe double hoping.
Is the old domain name still in search resulst?
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
-
Newby question about 301 redericts
I work for a design firm who has been updating a website for a client. In addition to a new look, we've consolidated redundant pages for a more streamlined site. My question is this: when I have replaced 3 somewhat redundant pages on the old site with 1 page on the new site, should I 301 redirect all the former pages to the one new page. I know this question is beyond basic but I'm pretty new to SEO, so be gentle.
Technical SEO | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Site Ranking Ahead of Us - Why?
I don't want to give details, but a competitor's site ranks ahead of us by a spot or 2 for some of our major keywords, and we can't figure out why. We have more content indexed, we have better content (my opinion), we're better optimized, we have significantly better MozRank and Majestic rankings, we have more links, we have better links. They have a plain Jane Wordpress blog, and their pages don't even have 300 characters. They don't have any awesome links. There are plenty of other sites besides ours that should outrank them. When I am using the various tools at my disposal, I can see why a competitor outranks us. I'm not obsessing, but this one, I just don't understand. Has anyone had this experience?
Technical SEO | | CsmBill0 -
WHOIS-info a ranking factor?
Hi How important is it to configure your domain info in the same way as the contact info of your website? I heard having a long expiry date on the domain and having proper contact info helps create domain trust? Any tips on this? Info on how to set this up in an optimal way? Thanks in advance Fredrik
Technical SEO | | Resultify0 -
What Would i do to get my site ranking high?
Hello Friends, I need your help please tell me what would I do to get my site ranking high in Google search engine. When I start my work on my site my work blog commenting , social bookmarking, keyword targeting etc.… But now the scene is completely changing. Now I am working on just guest blogging. I don’t understand that what would I do next after the guest blogging. Because I think there is now just one way to promote your site VIA guest blogging. Now please tell me is there any other option to work and get high ranking?
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
Wrong Page Ranking
Higher-level page with more power getting pushed out by weaker page in the SERPs for an important keyword. I don't care about losing the weaker page. Should I: 404 the weaker page and wait for Google to (hopefully) replace it with the stronger page? 301 the weaker page to the stronger page? NOTE: Due to poor communication between content team and myself, the weak and strong pages have similar title tags (i.e, "lawsuits" and "litigation")
Technical SEO | | LCNetwork0 -
Long URL
I am using seomoz software as a trial, it has crawled my site and a report is telling me that the URL for my forum is to long: <dl> <dt>Title</dt> <dd>Healthy Living Community</dd> <dt>Meta Description</dt> <dd>Healthy life discussion forum chatting about all aspects of healthy living including nutrition, fitness, motivation and much more.</dd> <dt>Meta Robots</dt> <dd>noodp, noydir</dd> <dt>Meta Refresh</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dd> 1 Warning Long URL (> 115 characters) Found about 17 hours ago <dl> <dt>Number of characters</dt> <dd>135 (over by 21)</dd> <dt>Description</dt> <dd>A good URL is descriptive and concise. Although not a high priority, we recommend a URL that is shorter than 75 characters.</dd> </dl> </dd> <dd> URL: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/reprogramming-health/welcome-to-the-forum-for-discussing-the-4-steps-for-reprogramming-ones-health/ The problem is when I check the page via edit or in the admin section of wordpress, the url is a s follows: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/ My question is where is I cannot see where this long url is located, it appears to be a valid page but I cant find it. Thanks Pete </dd> </dl>
Technical SEO | | petemarko0 -
301 Redirecting weird URLs with % in them
I've been working on redirecting links reported as 404 in Google webmaster tools. I've stumbled upon 41 URLs that Google is reporting as 404 that include a '%' in the URL, but I don't know how to redirect. Here is an example: URL: bond_information.htm%20Surety%20Bond%20Information,%20with%20FAQ Attempted redirect: redirect 301 /bond_information.htm%20Surety%20Bond%20Information,%20with%20FAQ http://www.mysite.com/ Unfortunately, after implementing the redirect, http://www.mysite.com/bond_information.htm%20Surety%20Bond%20Information,%20with%20FAQ still resolves a 404 error. Anyone successfully fix these errors using Apache .htaccess?
Technical SEO | | TheDude0 -
301 Redirect Question
I'm working on a site that has a lot of indexed pages and backlinks to both domain.com and www.domain.com. Will using a 301 redirect to send domain.com to www.domain.com merge all of the indexed pages and links over to www.domain.com, thereby strengthening the www?
Technical SEO | | Yo_Adrian0