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  4. How long should I keep 301 redirects?

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How long should I keep 301 redirects?

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  • socialtowards
    socialtowards last edited by Apr 11, 2012, 11:58 AM

    I have modified a the URL structure of a whole section of a website and used mod_rewrite 301 redirect to match the new structure. Now that was around 3 months ago and I was wondering how long should I keep this redirect for?

    As it is a new website I am quite sure that there are no links around with the old URL structure but still I can see the google bot trying from time to time to access the old URL structure. Shouldn't the google bot learn from this 301 redirect and not go anymore for the old URL?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • socialtowards
      socialtowards @Marcus_Miller last edited by Apr 11, 2012, 12:14 PM Apr 11, 2012, 12:14 PM

      Thanks to both of you for your answers. I will then leave my rewrite rules just in case. I guess they are not slowing down access to the website as they are really simple and quite standard. I suppose that google takes longer to "learn" the new URLs through the redirects.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • HalogenDigital
        HalogenDigital @Marcus_Miller last edited by Apr 11, 2012, 12:09 PM Apr 11, 2012, 12:09 PM

        I would agree with Marcus' answer on this one.

        Another question as an off-shoot from this one would be: What is the performance loss in checking each request against your htaccess rules?

        If the answer is none, or very little, then perhaps keeping the 301 forever isn't a bad idea at all. You never know how long people will be linking towards those 301'd pages. I personally have some pages just like this which have been redirecting visitors for as many as 5 years, because it's better to keep the link juice than to end up as 404s.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Marcus_Miller
          Marcus_Miller last edited by Apr 11, 2012, 12:11 PM Apr 11, 2012, 12:03 PM

          The simple answer is... forever, unless you have some pressing reason to remove them. Certainly, I would keep them there till I knew there was no indexation of these other links and no requests for them for a say, 12 month period.

          If you have external links pointing to any of these old pages, then again, that is another argument for keeping them in place.

          Just leave them there, comment them as legacy in redirection script and forget about them and focus on something else. 🙂

          Hope this helps.  
          Marcus

          HalogenDigital socialtowards 2 Replies Last reply Apr 11, 2012, 12:14 PM Reply Quote 3
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