301 Directs
-
We have found a lot of 404 error pages that we have transferred with 301 directs.
My questions is, should these 301 directs be marked as a NF (nofollow)?
-
Haa!
I love that infographic Greg! We have a printed version on our war room wall
-
- No you should not use NF (nofollow) on your 301 redirects. Make sure when redirecting your 404's that you are redirecting them to a relevant page.
- Never NoFollow 301s unless it an affiliate link if for instance you had the site that allowed someone to sign up and you are compensated financially for that person signing up on your website then you would use the nofollow tag. Here is it URL discussing what I'm talking about Example of affiliate links
- If you did add NoFollow on your code change it ASAP an instance of when you may see it used is when somebody puts a URL in the comment box of any major blogging platform for instance no follow is built into comments on WordPress but that's all automatic. Meaning you do not have to add the no follow I bring this up only if this involves you checking your code.
- You should never know follow a link that is internal you would destroy your ability to be found online. Outside of the affiliate link scenario I gave above.
Greg
-
Google will eventually get rid of them. If you have similar pages to the ones that are 404 errors, then you should redirect them. If you don't then best practice is to let them fall off.
However, if you had key terms ranking on page 1 or 2 on those pages I would definitely redirect them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp5Nf8ANfOw This is a video by Matt Cutts where he kind of tells you how to handle these errors effectively
-
No, you don't want to NoFollow 301s. The point of a 301 permanent redirect is for "everyone to be redirected" - users, search bots, & link juice - but adding NoFollow would prevent this.
-
We have had 404 errors for over a month now through Moz. These are of high priority to be taken care of as well, so leaving it for Google to get rid of sounds very discouraging. These links are not ones we use on our site anymore and that is why we've been re-directing.
-
I think 404's should be 404's as if someone is linking to pages that don't exist, a 404 is the best response. Google and bots will see a 404 and remove that url.
301's are more useful when reorganizing a site and traffic (inbound links, search traffic) come in to old urls. To just redirect all 404s as a 301 us not usefull I would say.
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
-
301 redirect to a temporary URL
Hi there, What would happen if I redirected a set of URLs to a temporary URL structure. And then a few weeks later redirected the original URLs and temporary URLs to the final permanent URLs? So for example:A -> B for a few weeks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sichristie
then: A->C and B->C where:
C is the final destination URL.
B is the temporary destination
A is the original URL. The reason we are doing this is the naming of the URLs and pages are different, and we wish to transition our customers carefully from old to new. I am looking for a pure technical response.
Would we lose link juice? Does Google care if we permanently redirect to a set of 'temporary' URLs, and then permanently redirect to a set of what we think are permanent URLs? Cheers, Simon0 -
301 Redirect from now defunct website?
Hi guys Quick question about 301 redirection between domains. I currently manage a website, lets call it website A. Website A sells a particular product range, however the decision has been made by the powers that be to pull the plug on the business and sell the products previously sold via Website A via another website within the parent companies control.....lets call it Website B. I need to make it clear to customers of Website A that the company no longer operates but want to pass the SEO equity that has been built up over time to the relevant pages on Website B. My plan was to 1. 301 Redirect all key landing pages on Website A to the most relevant pages on Website B 2. Initially keep the website A homepage live but change the message to say "Website A no longer operates, but Website B can help etc. etc." Remove all sub links from navigation. 3. Monitor referral and direct traffic levels and consider 301 redirecting website A homepage to Website B homepage in the long term. My questions: Does this sound like the best approach? If not, what alternatives are there? Will Website A look like a link farm for Website B? I dont want this obviously!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
301 redirect and improved ranking
I was wondering if a 301 redirect will improve my ranking. My subpages use to redirect to my homepage ( all the subpages of my site redirecting to my homepage) and my homepage use to have no redirect from non www.to www. ( other than thru google webmaster tools. I am sure why it was like this for my subpages... I was wondering if I can expect some improvements in ranking now that the redirect goes from the none www. to the www version of each subpage and not to the homepage. By the way what was the issue ( was I telling google ) by re-directing all my subpages to the homepage ? was I making google think that my subpages and my homepage were all the same ? was I sending all the link juice from the subpages to my homepage ? etc... Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Canonical or 301 redirect, that is the question?
So my site has duplicate content issues because of the index.html and the www and non www version of the site. What's the best way to deal with this without htaccess? Is it a 301 redirect or is it the canonical, or is it both?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Does 301 Redirect works on social signals?
Hello, I'm considering strategic change in my site's formation.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
301 redirecting some of the pages is not a problem but the question remains - what will happen with all of my social signals? These pages have Likes, plus ones, and tweets. Thanks0 -
301 Redirect question
Which is the best way to set up the 301 redirect on my main home page? http://horsebuggy.com to http://www.horsebuggy.com Or does it make a difference? Boodreaux
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Best way to handle old re-directs?
What happens if you go back and change old 301 re-directs? So instead of it re-directing from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C. What does Google see this as next time it crawls the site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anchorwave0 -
How do you explain the problem with several re-directs to a client?
I have a client who has done a lot of link building, and just migrated his site from an old platform to a more seo friendly one, but now he is moving pages on the new site. Old Site --> (301 re-direct) --> New Site --> (301 re-direct) --> Changed Page -->(301 re-direct) Changed page again, etc All his changes are making a lot of etra work for me every month and I feel he is wasting a lot of link juice, How Would you explain to the client why they shouldn't be using several re-directs? What can I do to make sure that they keep as much link juice as possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anchorwave0