Redirecting to homepage ok?
-
I deleted a bunch of category pages (renamed mostly actually and thought they'd be auto redirected like my blog posts are but they weren't) so I used a plugin that reroutes any 404 page to the homepage. Is that the best thing to do in this situation? Google Webmasters says there are about 84 404-errors and this should get rid of those right? Is there anything SEO BAD about doing it this way?
-
Wow - thanks! I found a plugin for now but I will definitely save this info. I appreciate your help!
-
You will need FTP access to your root. If you do not have an .htaccess file, then you can create a text file, upload and then remove the .txt. Use Notepad or a similar application. If there is a file, be careful not to overwrite anything that is already there.
Create a new line that reads, for each page, and optionally use comments to keep track of your code
301 redirects
redirect 301 /old-category-page/ http://www.yourdomain.com/new-category-page/
redirect 301 /old-category2-page/ http://www.yourdomain.com/new-category2-page/Here's how that breaks down:
redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved)
/old-category-page/ (the original folder path and file name)
http://www.yourdomain.com/new-category-page/ (new path and file name)Save and upload.
If you are unsure about FTP to the root, contact your hosting provider. Hope this helps!
-
Thank you. I understand. I just need a tutorial on how to take a deleted URL and redirect it to the most relevant URL. I am a novice when it comes to HTML etc.
-
MIke is spot on and correct! Handling 404s should be a process in which you manually map one page to another, unless you have a large enterprise site and can setup server rules to handle the redirecting process.
For you, take the old category URL, and map it to the renamed category. Do this for each and every one. After you have done that, revisit GWT, and address the remaining 404s individually.
-
Alright, that is good to know. I deleted that plugin to stop the bulk redirects. I just don't know how to redirect the 404s since I already deleted them I don't know how to manipulate them.
Should I just create the category pages again? I suppose the URL would be the same right?
-
This is definitely NOT the best thing to do. Bulk redirects to the homepage will wind up killing a large chunk of the relevancy signals, link equity and traffic since you're not serving the most relevant alternative to your users. They should be redirected to their most relevant live counterpart. And using a plugin that redirects ALL 404s isn't good either since sometimes a 404 is useful. For example, how will you know if a link is broken if it can't 404? In this case, if you just renamed the categories... redirect the old URL to the renamed category it belongs to.
Take a look at Cyrus' blog post from the 18th How to Completely Ruin (or Save) Your Website with Redirects.
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
-
Should I redirect a popular but irrelevant blog post to the home page?
Hi. I'm trying to get my website; www.ciphr.com , to rank for keywords relevant to "HR Software" in the UK. It's a highly competitive industry and we rank ~mid to low on page one for some of our ideal keywords that are highly relevant and high volume. Years ago we took the decision to blog about topics more loosely related to the world of work. One of our blog posts, about plants in the office https://www.ciphr.com/advice/plants-in-the-office/ is popular. It gets decent traffic and consistently builds backlinks to the post without any further effort on our part. The specific page has a PA of 46 and DA of 55 with >500 domains linking to it. This compares to our home page with a PA of 47 and 700 linking domains. It is typically the home page that ranks for our money keywords "HR Software" "HR Systems" in the UK. Because this blog post is so loosely related to our actual business, the traffic it generates is highly unlikely to turn into a customer of ours. I am considering redirecting the blog post to the home page to pass link juice to the home page. The concern I have is that, based on the anchor text and contextual signals from linking pages, Google might then infer that our home page is less relevant for our money keywords and more relevant for "plants". Are my concerns unfounded? What are your thoughts? Should I redirect the blog post to the home page? Another internal page? Keep the blog post live? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | crichardson19922 -
Is adding video to my homepage a ranking signal
Just had a lengthy chat with an SEO guy and one of the points bought up was that video on the homepage is a definite signal these days and the bots read the metas better than ever. I'm not sure about this, I do think that videos are a thing that improves the user experience but to rank? If it was to rank would I embed a YouTube video as its owned by Google, Vimeo for the quality or self-host but cause me to have a heavy page. I'm a bit lost here and would appreciate some guidance.
On-Page Optimization | | Libra_Photographic1 -
Should I add canonical links to pages that are redirected?
Hello! I am a little confused concerning canonical links. I have several URLs that all access my page, but I redirect them all. A lot of places I am told to redirect them or use canonicals. Other places, I read that I should always use canonicals. What is the right way for me? If I should use canonicals as well as redirects, which links should I do this on? I redirect my pages like this: http to https:
On-Page Optimization | | hermanok
http://example.com -> https://example.com www to non-www:
https://www.example.com -> https://example.com Remove trailing slashes
https://example.com/ -> https://example.com Would-be 404-requests to index.php?p=$1
https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( show as https://example.com/home ) Example:
http://www.example.com/home/ -> http://www.example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( shows as https://example.com/home ) Thank you!0 -
Our SEO suggests thinning our homepage - is this a good idea?
We provide a single medical service in London. Our domain is "service"london.co.uk. Our home page consists of: Welcome message (40 words) Reasons why customers choose us (720 words) - as bullet points Benefits of the service (380 words - as 6 subheadings) Then a small sample of testimonials It currently looks word doc boring so that's definitely an area we are talking to our designer about. We currently rank second or third for our most popular keywords which are mostly variations of "service london" - these go straight to our home page. Our competitors do the same. The only other pages that rank are /pricing (for "service london price") and /reviews (for a tiny proportion of rarer keywords) The main variations in the services we provide is adult and children. We have /adults and /children pages for this where we describe the actual procedures (these are relatively new pages so perhaps they will rank for "adult/children service london" in the future, but right now, they still go to the home page). Now our SEO agency suggests we spread the content into more pages: Why us page, Benefits of service page etc., (also suggested we add more high quality content pages). Our home page will be similar to what moz suggested on whiteboard Friday - a few key points then directing them towards the sub-pages to read more. However I am unsure if this is suitable for us where the great majority of our organic traffic comes from "service london". These visitors should ideally still come to our home page and I'm not sure if Google will be thrilled that my home page is now poorer in terms of content despite the fact that the home page still links to these high quality pages on my site. Would really appreciate this beautiful community's insights on this. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | LondonAli0 -
How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect
Hi all I hope that someone can help.... How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect The url in question is: How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/search/Category/luxury_hotels_venues_uk_wedding_venues/exclusive_use_venues/letter/c http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/bedfordshire-weddings/franklin-park http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/chorley-weddings/curtis-bay etc, going to http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business the above is just a few examples, google webmaster is showing over 8.000 404 page not found errors. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Taiger0 -
Redirecting deleted posts 301 vs 302
There is a category on WP where job ads are posted. when a post got deleted I would like to pass 404 error page and redirect all those deleted posts to specific category. I found WP plugin Auto Redirect 404 in 301 for Trashed Posts which does redirect deleted post to specific URL. But posts which are in the trash (not permanently deleted) will get 302 redirects. Those deleted permanently will get 301 redirects. Should I try editing this plugin or find another why? Maybe there is similar way with Redirection plugin?
On-Page Optimization | | OVJ0 -
Redirect a blog category page to the homepage?
Hi folks Following Penguin 1.1, I have a client site at number 5 for their primary keyword. (was creeping up page 2 with whitehat link building and tight on-site SEO.) However now the page ranking at No. 5 is for a blog category archive. What do people think the quickest / safest way to get this ranking directed back to the homepage is? Many thanks Simon
On-Page Optimization | | SCL-SEO0 -
Is it ok to use the H1 tag for bullet points?
Our search results page doesn't have a typical H1 tag because adding a true header would take up space unnecessarily. Therefore, we've assigned the h1 tag to be the breadcrumb. As filters are applied, the breadcrumb grows to include these filters. This breadcrumb is coded as bullet points, even though they're not the typical style of bullet points. Here's a screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/AjGC9iAYR3 For example, the breadcrumb: Home >> NYC Social Media Classes >> Adult >> Manhattan is currently coded as: | |
On-Page Optimization | | mevseo
| | * class="first"><a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>/">Home |
| | * <a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>/nyc/classes/social-media/age-adults/neighborhood-manhattan" class="Selected">Search results |
| | |
| | |
| | id="cat_social-media" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setCategory('social-media')" /> |
| | # style="font-size: 12px; display: inline;">NYC Social Media Classes |
| | <label <span="">for</label>="cat_social-media"> |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | <nobr>id="age_adults" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setAge('adults')" /><label <span="">for</label>="age_adults">Adults</nobr> |
| | |
| | |
| | <nobr>id="nbhd_manhattan" type="checkbox" checked onclick="setNeighborhood('manhattan')" /><label <span="">for</label>="nbhd_manhattan">Manhattan</nobr> |
| | |
| | | Right now that H1 tag just relates to 'NYC Social media classes', but we'd like to expand it to include both 'Manhattan' & 'Adults' - would that be ok? And if so, would it be better to put the tag before and after the tag?0