Time sensitive: HELP! We are having a problem doing a 301 redirect.....what can we do instead?
-
Our website has dynamic URLs and we are moving to another server/platform. 301 redirects is looking like a highly unlikely solution. A 3rd party company is handling the back-end of the website which they say works more like a "search engine" than a traditional website. Maybe that explains why they're having a hard time with the 301 redirects.
Worst case scenario: we can't use the 301 redirect.
What else can we do? We are considering "Indicate your canonical (preferred) URLs by including them in a Sitemap" as Google describes here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139066#2. I'm wondering if this method only applies to duplicate content........and what would happen once the old website results in a 404 page......
HELP! We need to cross over to the new platform as soon as possible.
-
We definitely have a comprehensive link list in hand!
-
Of course, if anyone else out there in the SEOMoz community want to chime in, I'm open to any thoughts, suggestions, and help.
-
We're accepting private questions until next Friday, and will answer all that we get. It may take a couple to a few days for a response, since everyone is trying to get in their last private question, but it's probably the best option for your right now.
-
Awesome - thanks! I was hesitant if I should do a private question since it's being shut down soon. But thanks for the "go" signal. I'll send it right away.
-
This might be a bit of a tough one to answer without details about the site. You may want to consider asking this in private Q&A where you can give URLs and more details without the public seeing.
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
-
URL no longer ranks after redesign, everything was done by the book. Can someone plz help?
Hey Mozzers, After a redesign of our site we have a huge problem with 1 particular URL. We can't understand what is wrong with it. Our site was redesigned about 3 weeks ago everything was done to make sure the process was smooth. Content on the new url was exactly the same as before, title tags and meta descriptions were copy pasted, 301 redirects were set up. Our site has 47 pages and all other pages are still ranking the same way as they used to before the update but this one url has just dropped from serps or once a while is appearing on 2nd, 3rd pages. URL in question is: https://dcacar.com/dulles-limo-service/ We are a MOZ pro client and have the data on where this url was ranking prior to the update. Keywords it ranked for #1position on page one- some examples ( car service to dulles, car service to iad, dulles airport limo service) and many more. The only thing that has changed was the url the old url was https://www.dcacar.com/dulles-limo-service.html After the new design we got rid of the ".html" on all our urls, the funny thing is that all our 46 urls were updated the same way but only this url is experiencing this problem. Google search console shows that url is indexed and on Google but sometimes it does not show up on serps. Can anyone please help? 20% of our business comes from this url and we are loosing real money everyday and I can't figure out was is wrong with it. Thanks all, Davit
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davit19850 -
Can 301 redirects that are inaccurate cause Google suppressions on rankings?
In an interesting study by DeganSEO titled 'Negative Impact of 301 Redirects - A Case Study' a drop of rankings was observed when popular blog posts were redirected to product pages. One hypothesis is that the suppression is due to topical difference between the redirected pages (blog posts) and the target page. The topical difference issue is an interesting one when you consider it in the context of website migrations. We always recommend that 301 redirects are done at a page level and that if an equivalent page doesn't exist to just 301 anyway but to the most logical page. If you think about it Google are likely to frown on this because a) it's not a good experience for the user - 404 would be more accurate for them
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | QubaSEO
b) it's lazy - if you have good content that has gained authority/trust then create the same content on the new site don't trytp pass that to an entirely different page. Thoughts? Experiences?0 -
Using cononical tag instead of 301
I've got a bit of an odd situation... My business partner and I split up, and he's going to keep the company name. The website that I built for the company has some links to it, and I've managed to build up some DA and PA. I want to get the link juice over to my new website. My former partner doesn't care about the link juice, he just wants a website that he can show people. SO, I can't do a 301 or 302, because that would take down the existing site. Can I just use a canonical tag that refers link power to my new website? Would this be harmful in any way? What should I do to accomplish getting the link power without a redirect, and without contacting each person who has given us a backlink?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zing-Marketing0 -
Removing 301 redirect from 2.5 yr old domain
Hello, Need Advise. We are in Automobiles We have an Automotive site - build 3 yrs back - which is our main site (Site A) We built a separate niche site on Used cars 2.5 yrs back (Site B - url http://www.usedcarindelhi.com) - did seo - promote it for a year and later on in feb 2013 - did 301 domain redirection to Site A Now - we thinking to rebuild Site Site B again and remove redirection Will there be any harm on Site A, as we have now removed the redirection or shall we pass on link from home page of Site B to Site A i.e say Powered by Site A (on Top) or at all no direct linking is actually needed. PS :- Also - can anyone let know the backlink quality of www.usedcarindelhi.com. Its PR 3, DA - 18, Majestic Citation Flow - 18, Trust Flow - 11 . Pl advise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
When is it time to kill 301 redirects
3 months we updated our site design design and as such lots of page urls changed. At the time we 301 redirected about 100 pages. (All pages are on the same domain - 301 redirects like .com/about-us/company to .com/company) Anyhow my question is should I leave these redirects active indefinitely or kill them assuming value has passed through by now? Your Thoughts are welcomed. Thanks, Glen.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdvanceSystems0 -
301 Redirect and Webmaster Central
I've been working on removing canonical issues. My host is Apache. Is this the correct code for my htaccess? RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spkcp111
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^luckygemstones.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.luckygemstones.com/$1 [R=301,L] SECOND!!! I have two websites under Google's Webmaster Central; http://luckygemstones.com which gets NO 404 soft errors... AND http://www.luckygemstones.com which has 247 soft 404 errors... I think I should DELETE the http://luckygemstones.com site from Webmaster Central--the 301 redirect handles the"www" thing. Is this correct? I hate to hose things (even worse?) Help! Kathleen0 -
Is this a Correct Time to Use 302 Redirects?
Hi Mozzers! We are going through a rebranding process, and as of this morning we have 3 domains, all with identical content. For example (not real domain names): www.fantastic.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
www.fantasticfireworks.com
www.fireworks.com We are using 3 domains to ease the rebranding transition. We currently only want people to visit 'www.fantastic.com,' and if they visit the other 2 domains we want them redirected. Since we will be using these other domains eventually, should we use 302 redirects instead of 301s? The other domains are new and do not have any domain authority or sites linking in, so we do not need to worry about link juice. Does it really matter what type of redirect we use? Thanks!0 -
How to 301 redirect all URLs with /? in?
I want to redirect all URLs that have /? in it. Indexed in Google is a bunch of urls lik: mysite.com/?674764 mysite.com/?rtf8y78 I want all these URLs to be redirected to my home page. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0