Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Direct link vs 302 redirect
-
So we have recently relaunched a site that we manage. As part of this we have changed the domain. The webdesign agency that built the new site have implemented a direct link from the old domain to the new domain. What is best practice a direct link or a 302 redirect? Thanks
-
Thanks a million for the help guys.
-
Hi Conor,
Chris's answer here is perfect.
You definitely don't just want to link from the old site to the new; you want the old site to be "gone" and to serve a 301 redirect to tell search engines "this resource has permanently moved, and is now over here ----> [new site]".
301 redirects are vital; 302s do not pass authority from one URL to another (there is speculation that a 302 that has been in place for a very long time might be treated as a 301 by Bing, but let's go with the fact that they're next to useless in most cases for passing SEO value).
The 301 redirect should be implemented on a page by page basis, meaning that the home page at www.oldiste.com redirects to www.newsite.com. www.oldsite.com/page1.html redirects to that page's new location, e.g. www.newsite.com/page1.html, and so forth. As Chris says, you do not want www.oldsite.com/page23.html to redirect to the home page of www.newsite.com. The only case in which you'd want to do this is if /page23.html no longer exists on the new site.
How this is done depends on what type of server your site sits on. If you are using an Apache server, the web developers will do this in the site's .htaccess file. If you are using a Microsoft IIS server, this will be done in a control panel. The web development company will clearly know which server you're using and where this will be done.
Some servers and hosts still implement 302 redirects as standard and not 301s, which is very frustrating from an SEO point of view. There should be nothing more difficult about creating a 301 than a 302.
The short version is: 301 the old site to the new if you want to transfer the authority from the old site to the new one. This will ensure that you bring most of that authority with you.
-
A 301 is telling Search engines (and any links) that this link or site has moved permanently, this would then mean the value of the links would be moved to the new location. A link would imply the site is staying and a % of link juice would flow though it compared to more through a 301. Other problem could be you may have duplicate content if your moving the domain.
If you do get a 301 done make sure they don't just 301 it all to the homepage it should be moved each category moved to its counter part (or as close to) as possible to maintain the transfer of authority & juice.
Hope that helps, and good luck!
-
Sorry yes I got a bit confused there. It is moved permanently so it should be a 301 rather than 302. But what is difference between the direct link and the 301. Is it just a case that the 301 can be more difficult to implement? I will not actually be implementing the redirect myself. This will be done by a 3rd party webdesign agency. I suppose I am keen to keep as much of the authority as possible from the old domain. Thanks
-
Is it a temp redirect ? If you're planning on move permanently you may want to think about 301ing the whole site to its relevant counter parts. a Direct Link is good for building up some authority and slowly migrating the site over time making sure each stage goes to plan rather than 301 the whole thing and panic if something goes wrong. It really boils down to your longer term goal.
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
-
I have a question about the impact of a root domain redirect on site-wide redirects and slugs.
I have a question about the impact (if any) of site-wide redirects for DNS/hosting change purposes. I am preparing to redirect the domain for a site I manage from https://siteImanage.com to https://www.siteImanage.com. Traffic to the site currently redirects in reverse, from https://www.siteImanage.com to https://siteImanage.com. Based on my research, I understand that making this change should not affect the site’s excellent SEO as long as my canonical tags are updated and a 301 redirect is in place. But I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a potential consequence of this switch I’m not considering. Because this redirect lives at the root of all the site’s slugs and existing redirects, will it technically produce a redirect chain or a redirect loop? If it does, is that problematic? Thanks for your input!
Technical SEO | Jun 1, 2023, 7:33 AM | mollykathariner_ms0 -
Sudden jump in the number of 302 redirects on my Squarespace Site
My Squarespace site www.thephysiocompany.com has seen a sudden jump in 302 redirects in the past 30 days. Gone from 0-302 (ironically). They are not detectable using generic link redirect testing sites and Squarespace have not explanation. Any help would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | Jul 27, 2015, 11:24 AM | Jcoley0 -
DNS vs IIS redirection
I'm working on a project where a site has gone through a rebrand and is therefore also moving to a new domain name. Some pages have been merged on the new site so it's not a lift and shift job and so I'm writing up a redirect plan. Their IT dept have asked if we want redirects done by DNS redirect or IIS redirect. Which one will allow us to have redirects on a page level and not a domain level? I think IIS may be the right route but would love your thoughts on this please.
Technical SEO | Feb 10, 2015, 4:30 PM | Marketing_Today1 -
302 redirect used, submit old sitemap?
The website of a partner of mine was recently migrated to a new platform. Even though the content on the pages mostly stayed the same, both the HTML source (divs, meta data, headers, etc.) and URLs (removed index.php, removed capitalization, etc) changed heavily. Unfortunately, the URLs of ALL forum posts (150K+) were redirected using a 302 redirect, which was only recently discovered and swiftly changed to a 301 after the discovery. Several other important content pages (150+) weren't redirected at all at first, but most now have a 301 redirect as well. The 302 redirects and 404 content pages had been live for over 2 weeks at that point, and judging by the consistent day/day drop in organic traffic, I'm guessing Google didn't like the way this migration went. My best guess would be that Google is currently treating all these content pages as 'new' (after all, the source code changed 50%+, most of the meta data changed, the URL changed, and a 302 redirect was used). On top of that, the large number of 404's they've encountered (40K+) probably also fueled their belief of a now non-worthy-of-traffic website. Given that some of these pages had been online for almost a decade, I would love Google to see that these pages are actually new versions of the old page, and therefore pass on any link juice & authority. I had the idea of submitting a sitemap containing the most important URLs of the old website (as harvested from the Top Visited Pages from Google Analytics, because no old sitemap was ever generated...), thereby re-pointing Google to all these old pages, but presenting them with a nice 301 redirect this time instead, hopefully causing them to regain their rankings. To your best knowledge, would that help the problems I've outlined above? Could it hurt? Any other tips are welcome as well.
Technical SEO | Oct 18, 2013, 4:27 PM | Theo-NL0 -
Tool to search relative vs absolute internal links
I'm preparing for a site migration from a .co.uk to a .com and I want to ensure all internal links are updated to point to the new primary domain. What tool can I use to check internal links as some are relative and others are absolute so I need to update them all to relative.
Technical SEO | Jun 12, 2013, 6:05 PM | Lindsay_D0 -
Drupal URL Aliases vs 301 Redirects + Do URL Aliases create duplicates?
Hi all! I have just begun work on a Drupal site which heavily uses the URL Aliases feature. I fear that it is creating duplicate links. For example:: we have http://www.URL.com/index.php and http://www.URL.com/ In addition we are about to switch a lot of links and want to keep the search engine benefit. Am I right in thinking URL aliases change the URL, while leaving the old URL live and without creating search engine friendly redirects such as 301s? Thanks for any help! Christian
Technical SEO | Nov 11, 2011, 5:29 AM | ChristianMKTG0 -
Syndication: Link back vs. Rel Canonical
For content syndication, let's say I have the choice of (1) a link back or (2) a cross domain rel canonical to the original page, which one would you choose and why? (I'm trying to pick the best option to save dev time!) I'm also curious to know what would be the difference in SERPs between the link back & the canonical solution for the original publisher and for sydication partners? (I would prefer not having the syndication partners disappeared entirely from SERPs, I just want to make sure I'm first!) A side question: What's the difference in real life between the Google source attribution tag & the cross domain rel canonical tag? Thanks! PS: Don't know if it helps but note that we can syndicate 1 article to multiple syndication partners (It would't be impossible to see 1 article syndicated to 50 partners)
Technical SEO | May 6, 2011, 3:55 PM | raywatson0 -
Add to Cart Link
We have shopping cart links (<a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p"></a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">The SEOMoz site crawls are flagging these as a massive number of 302 redirects and I also wonder what sort of effect this is having on linkjuice flowing around the site. </a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">I can see several possible solutions: Make the links nofollow Make the links input buttons Block /cart/add with robots.txt Make the links 301 instead of 302 Make the links javascript (probably worst care) All of these would result in an identical outcome for the UX, but are very different solutions. What would you suggest?</a>
Technical SEO | Mar 12, 2011, 12:48 AM | Aspedia0