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.
Is it good to redirect million of pages on a single page?
-
My site has 10 lakh approx. genuine urls. But due to some unidentified bugs site has created irrelevant urls 10 million approx. Since we don’t know the origin of these non-relevant links, we want to redirect or remove all these urls. Please suggest is it good to redirect such a high number urls to home page or to throw 404 for these pages. Or any other suggestions to solve this issue.
-
If they were recently randomly generated by some errand code, you can let them die and 404. The only time you want to redirect a page to another is if that page 1) is getting traffic or 2) has backlinks. Since you're dealing with a code error, those two are very unlikely and you can be confident in just killing the pages.
-
I would also say you can also disavow those links to google - would take a good amount of your time though.
-
If you search on youtube you may find a video of Matt Cutts where he is saying redirect a million url overnight to the same page would rise a flag in the anti-spam team and lead to a manual review. If you have nothing to fear and you believe your redirects are legit you don't necessarily have to be scared.
But if the links are due to a bug, I guess they have no juice to pass, so why redirect?
-
Hi anirbandas,
10 million are a lot of pages ... First of all, still researching and double check to see which is the intent of these links.
You can do any of the options that you have been recommended above, or monitor these links and if you see something strange disavow tool using Google.
Good luck
-
I would throw HTTP 410s for them all if they don't get traffic. 410 carries a little bit more weight than 404s and we're not talking about a small number of pages here. I wouldn't redirect them to the homepage as you'll almost certainly get a ton of "soft 404s" in WMT if done all at once.
Matt Cutts on 404 vs 410: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp5Nf8ANfOw
If they are getting traffic, then it'll be a harder job to unpick the pages that have value.
George
-
If for any reason you are seeing traffic flow to these pages then i would redirect if possible.
-
I would go 404's (and let them die) as I dont think those have any good content on them since it was just generated.
Redirecting them wont really do much.
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 | | mollykathariner_ms0 -
Keyword variations on a single page
I have done the research and have compiled a list of a little over 100 keywords that are highly connected to our industry. I have used the metrics to rank those keywords and have given the top 50 of them a ranking. My intention is to use them on my site and make sure that all of my pages have a keyword focus. In doing this, I am running into some challenges. Any insight would be helpful. 1. There are numerous keywords that have simple variations in them. I am trying to figure out if each variation needs it's own page. I have read articles (here on moz) that say that one page can rank for several keywords, and other articles that say that a simple variation can need it's own page. Not sure what to do here. Below is an example of what I mean. (examples: "my long tail keyword" , "my long tail" , "my long" , "long tail" , "long tail keyword" , "keyword long tail") 2. Will it help to create a page for each one of the 50 or even the full 100? I have the opportunity to use blogs and FAQ's to assist with content creation. 3. Since my brand ranks well and is obviously tied highly into my site, do I worry about including brand terms in my keyword focus or should I just focus on those search terms?
Technical SEO | | Smart_Start0 -
How do I redirect the Author archive page in Wordpress?
If you do a search for my name on Google, the first result is the author archive page of my Wordpress blog. I would like to redirect the author page to my "about me" page but cannot add a 301 as the author page is created dynamically in Wordpress. Anyone know how I can do this?
Technical SEO | | richdan0 -
Are image pages considered 'thin' content pages?
I am currently doing a site audit. The total number of pages on the website are around 400... 187 of them are image pages and coming up as 'zero' word count in Screaming Frog report. I needed to know if they will be considered 'thin' content by search engines? Should I include them as an issue? An answer would be most appreciated.
Technical SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz0 -
When creating parent and child pages should key words be repeated in url and page title?
We are in the direct mail advertising business: PrintLabelAndMail.com Example: Parent:
Technical SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach
Postcard Direct Mail Children:
Postcard Mailings
Postcard Design
Postcard Samples
Postcard Pricing
Postcard Advantages should "postcard" be repeated in the URL and Page Title? and in this example should each of the 5 children link back directly to the parent or would it be better to "daisy chain" them using each as parent for the next?0 -
How Does Google's "index" find the location of pages in the "page directory" to return?
This is my understanding of how Google's search works, and I am unsure about one thing in specific: Google continuously crawls websites and stores each page it finds (let's call it "page directory") Google's "page directory" is a cache so it isn't the "live" version of the page Google has separate storage called "the index" which contains all the keywords searched. These keywords in "the index" point to the pages in the "page directory" that contain the same keywords. When someone searches a keyword, that keyword is accessed in the "index" and returns all relevant pages in the "page directory" These returned pages are given ranks based on the algorithm The one part I'm unsure of is how Google's "index" knows the location of relevant pages in the "page directory". The keyword entries in the "index" point to the "page directory" somehow. I'm thinking each page has a url in the "page directory", and the entries in the "index" contain these urls. Since Google's "page directory" is a cache, would the urls be the same as the live website (and would the keywords in the "index" point to these urls)? For example if webpage is found at wwww.website.com/page1, would the "page directory" store this page under that url in Google's cache? The reason I want to discuss this is to know the effects of changing a pages url by understanding how the search process works better.
Technical SEO | | reidsteven750 -
Redirecting Entire Microsite Content to Main Site Internal Pages?
I am currently working on improving site authority for a client site. The main site has significant authority, but I have learned that the company owns several other resource-focused microsites which are stagnant, but which have accrued significant page authority of their own (thought still less than the main site). Realizing the fault in housing good content on a microsite rather than the main site, my thought is that I can redirect the content of the microsites to internal pages on the main site as a "Resources" section. I am wondering a: if this is a good idea and b: the best way to transfer site authority from these microsites. I am also wondering how to organize the content and if, for example, an entire microsite domain (e.g. microsite.com) should in fact be redirected to internal resource pages (e.g. mainsite.com/resources). Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | RightlookCreative1 -
Where to put Schema On Page
What part of my page should I put Schema data? Header? Footer? Also All pages? or just home page?
Technical SEO | | bozzie3114
