302 error removing site from results
-
I have a client who had a screwy url structure based off of parameters and all. They hired a developer that added the keyword to the end of the url and set up 302 redirects to the new keyword included url.
Since then the entire site has virtually gone missing in the results but it is not penalized. I put in a request with webmaster tools for reconsideration and they said there was no penalty.
I only just found the 302 problem today and think this is probably the problem. Could this remove a site from the search results?
-
As for issue #4. I believe that is where they used to have pages for each dimension of a product. So it would be upper level, sub level, product level.
Some products have hundreds of the same thing but with one inch different so they removed those pages and redirected them.
-
It's a little funky, but a couple of things I'm seeing:
(1) Some of your internal links (your catalog links) have the special character code (&) for the ampersands. Although browsers can resolve it, those are definitely not appropriate for URLs in href="" values and could be disrupting internal link-juice. I can't believe it's the whole story, but it isn't helping.
(2) Having your major categories 302-redirect is definitely not a good bet. Unfortunately, I also don't think it's the entire story. You're not even ranking for very specific brand terms, and the home-page is clearly indexed. I would fix (2) ASAP, but I don't know if it's the whole story.
(3) You've got the blog off on a sub-domain with a few indexed pages, but it seems to have no content. Unless you're going to ramp that up, it's probably counter-productive.
(4) I'm seeing some weird data in OSE and found that all of your non-www pages are 301-redirecting to the home-page, instead of the appropriate URL. For example:
http://metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=17
...this should go to a category page, but instead goes to the home-page. If you have links to the non-www version, this is potentially a problem. Add this to (1), (2) and (4) and you're compounding the mess.
(5) You have a fair chunk of links from low-value sources. I won't say spammy in all cases, but free link directories, link exchanges, etc. I don't want to list a bunch of examples, since this is a public question. You're teetering on the edge a bit, quality-wise, I suspect.
So, can I tell you definitively which of these it is? Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to completely separate them. I think you should tackle (1), (2) and (4) ASAP. Fix the internal problems, because then the picture will be MUCH clearer. I'd definitely take a look at your link profile and make sure there's nothing too questionable - you may have to tackle that at the same time.
-
I added more info
-
The site is indexed but does not rank for anything at all. It used to and now it doesnt ever since the 302s were added
For instance
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01
goes to
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01&C=Steel_Angle
The site is ugly and has poor navigation but that is not something they wish to change. On page is ok but not the best. Their link profile is again not the best but webmaster tools says there are no problems and when I put in a reconsideration request they said nothing was wrong.
It does not rank for anthing, not even its own company name. Nowhere in the top 100.
I want a brand new, more modern and clean site to be done. That however is not really viable.
The home page does not have a 302 but everything else essentially does.
There is no robots.txt file. There is no noindex.
The 302 is the only major thing that we have come across. Been looking into this for weeks and not finding anything that should be causing this to happen
-
It's a little tough to tell without seeing the URLs in question, unfortunately, but it is possible, yes. When you say "has virtually gone missing", what do you mean, precisely? It usually boils down to a continuum:
(1) Not indexed
(2) Indexed but not ranking
(3) Ranking but poorly
A bad 302 setup is more likely to cause (1) and maybe cross into (2) then (3), but it really does depend. The first step is to see how you're being indexed. The other question is if the 302 is creating duplicates or causing crawl/index problems - for example, are both versions of the URL being indexed (that could also be bad)?
If the correct URL is being indexed and it's ranking, but it's just not ranking very well, then I suspect you've got more going on than the 302s. If nothing else, fixing the problem will make the situation cleaner and easier to diagnose. If you add technical problems on top of other problems (like link profile issues), sorting out the mess can be extremely difficult.
-
Is the homepage also 302'd ? Are the pages indexable ? Have you tried to do fetch as Google Bot ? Check the HTTP headers to see what it returns for the homepage as well as some example URLs linked from the homepage. Also check to make sure there's no meta noindex or anything like that. I would also check the robots.txt In my opinion, the 302 could be the least likely culprit, but it might be something either related to that or something from the above. I hope it helps. If not post or pm me the URL.
-
Hey webfeatseo,
First of all what you need to understand is what 302 redirect means: for that I advice you to check Dr. Pete's infographic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes
Now to go further to your question, would it be possible for us to see an URl? It would easy our job to help you out.
Cheers,
Istvan
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
-
Website crawl error
Hi all, When I try to crawl a website, I got next error message: "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal cookie name" For the moment, I found next explanation: The errors indicate that one of the web servers within the same cookie domain as the server is setting a cookie for your domain with the name "path", as well as another cookie with the name "domain" Does anyone has experience with this problem, knows what it means and knows how to solve it? Thanks in advance! Jens
Technical SEO | | WeAreDigital_BE0 -
Help! How to Remove Error Code 901: DNS Errors (But to a URL that doesn't exist!)
I have 2 urgent errors saying there are 2 x error code 909's detected. These don't link to any page - but I can tell there is a mistake somewhere - I just don't know what needs changing. http://www.justkeyrings.co.ukhttp/www.justkeyrings.co.uk/printed-promotional-keyrings http://www.justkeyrings.co.ukhttp/www.justkeyrings.co.uk/blank-unassembled-keyrings Could someone help please? screen-shot-2015-08-11-at-13.18.17.png?t=1439292942
Technical SEO | | FullSteamBusiness0 -
404 Errors in WMT
Currently my website have about 10,000 404 errors for my site as wordpress is adding /feed/ to the end of all url in my website.. Should I restrict /feed/ from the robot txt?
Technical SEO | | thewebguy30 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Removing Media from Wordpress
I've run the seomoz on page report and found an interesting issue. I'm using wordpress and it seems that every picture I add to my articles seem to be added as separate pages to the site. I'm having to go to each and every picture and creating a meta tag and description to it. I still get duplicate content issues with the same. On my Disqus system, I get the same pictures added just as a page or article would look like. What can I do to avoid this?
Technical SEO | | emasaa0 -
On-site adjustment opinions
Hi folks, I've got a fairly interesting scenario. I'm trying to rank this page (http://www.staysa.co.za/sa/1-2-0-0-1/East-London/accommodation) better for the term, "accommodation east london". The client isn't keen on making many changes and it was built horribly with ASP, half CMS, half not. I have made the following changes today: I introduced two paragraphs of text below the H1 tag. I changed "East London Bed and Breakfast", "East London Conference Venues", "East London Cottage / Chalet" to just "Bed and Breakfast", "Conference Venues", "Cottage / Chalet" as the continual key phrase duplication in my experience is a bad move. I've made a change to the title tag (this is a huge mission as it's not CMS controlled, so I had to teach myself some basic ASP to do so). Meta data.. nightmare to change unfortunately, at least not without rewriting part of the CMS. I'm wondering, are there any other on-site factors that I'm missing? I'm not a fan of site-wide links, so I don't want to put an exact match anchor text link from the sidebar/footer to the page, not unless someone can motivate why I should. Keen to hear everyone's opinions 🙂
Technical SEO | | ChristopherM0 -
Removing links from another site
Hello, Some site that I have never been able to access as it is always down has over 3,000 links to my website. They disappeared the other week and our search queries dramatically improved but now they are back again in Google Webmaster and we have dropped again.I have contacted the site owner and got no response and I have also put in a removal form (though I am not sure this fits for that) and asked Google to remove as they have been duplicating our content also. It was in my pending section but has now disappeared.This links are really damaging our search and the site isnt even there. Do I have to list all 3,000 links in the link removal to Google or is there another way I can go about telling them the issue.Appreciate any help on this
Technical SEO | | luwhosjack0 -
Will an identical site impact SERP results
I came across two identical sites for two different business owners in the same industry. I'm sure you've seen these. A web company offers individuals in the same profession a template site with the exact same content for each site. All that is different is the domain. i.e. mycompany.com/news/topicsname will have the exact same content, images, tags, etc. as mycompany2.com/news/topicsname. I would assume having the duplicate content, especially if two site owners are in the same town, will ultimately hurt the rankings of at least one site. Is this correct? Thank you for your help.
Technical SEO | | STF0