How many redirects are too many?
-
Hello Everyone,
I currently have a dynamic site and it is my understanding that switching to a static site would be beneficial.
I already have some 301's in place from when my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc. Is it okay to re redirect them? How many redirects are too many?
Thank you in advance for suggestions. Have a Fabulous Friday!
Sandra
-
I agree with Richard, based on your explanation, this is the proper way to do the 301 redirects. Your plan will work just fine.
GWT is Google Webmaster Tools
-
Based on your clarification above about the redirects, you are okay leaving it as is, as long as everything is redirecting properly. It would still be best practice to change the redirects from page 1 > page 3 and page 2 > page 3, so all old redirects point to their newer counterparts.
-
Thank you - that helps!
Sincerely,
Sandra
-
Hi Richard,
Can you elaborate? I don't know what you mean.
Thank you,
Sandra
-
Hi Monica,
What is my GWT? (I'm not a developer.)
With regards to the redirects, I am referring to Page 1 redirecting to Page 2 then redirecting to Page 3.
Story,
Site was first BASIC static, which was great. Then I was told upgrade it., so I upgraded to somewhat dynamic. (so now Page 1 now redirecting to New Page 1).
Then told, site needs to be upgraded again - guess what, this changes my extension again - wasn't told that was going to happen. So now I need to have old Page 1 redirecting to New Page 1, now re-redirect to newer Page 1 - because these two pages previous pages are indexed and getting a little link juice. NOW, I realize I should have stayed static and never gone dynamic; however, with switching back to static, it won't be the same extension as the first static site Hence, Page 1 now redirecting to New Page 1 to Newer Page and Re Re Redirecting to newest Page 1 because all of the above pages are indexed.
Do I just say FORGET IT, and scratch it all and let me get indexed as site gets crawled, because with all the 'updates' and 'upgrades' I supposedly needed (which I now know I didn't) all of my pages have fallen off of Google Page 1 and I'm lucky with anything is even on Page 2 or 3.
THANK YOU Again!!
-
Hi,
I am quoting you
"I currently have a dynamic site and it is my understanding that switching to a static site would be beneficial. "
My answer would be you can do url rewriting because our purpose to be have static URL e.g example.com/blue-widget not example.com&blue?widget
"I already have some 301's in place from when my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc"
I would not suggest that first of all I don't understand why do you want to redirect from.php to extension with parameters.
How many redirects are too many?
There is no limit but if you are doing chain redirect 2-3 max would be fine not more that that. To more info please watch Matt cutts video on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lVPrYoBkA#t=198
Thanks
-
It would be best practice to update the old redirects to the new structure as well.
-
Agree with Monica with a clarification. You shouldn't REmove the the 301 redirects after 6 months if there are incoming links to the old / dynamic URLs UNLESS you've been in touch with link owners and they have agreed to change the link to point to the new permanent URL.
And as Monica states, it's always a good idea to keep your eye on your GWT for 404 errors for any you may have missed.
-
It depends on how the redirects are done. If you do them in the htaccess file and they are dynamic, not manual, you can have thousands. What Kevin is referring to is how many times can you redirect the same page. You can't redirect page 1 to page 2 to page 3 to page 4 then to page 5. But you can redirect multiple pages on you site.
I understand from your previous post you are talking about your blog. You will be fine redirecting these URLs to static URLs. Do them through the HTAccess file. After about 6 months the old URLs should have fallen off and been removed from the index so you can move the 301 redirects. If anything gets missed you will find it in your GWT 404 errors.
-
A couple will be fine. Anything more than that may be problematic. In 2011, Matt Cutts stated anything more than five and Googlebot will not follow it.
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 - Rank Recovery Examples?
Hi All, I recently did a 301 redirect. Page to Page and the notified google via its console. Its been 6 days since. The home page and one other high traffic page swopped out with the new domain on google search index with 3-4 drops in ranking for each. The rest of the sites pages have been indexed but still reflect the old domain when searched. Recently today my home page dropped even further to the second page of google index for the specific keyword. Can you share similar experiences and how long it took you to recover rank fully? and how long for all pages to swop out on google search's index? Regards Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeBlue10 -
When is Too Many Categories Too Many on a eCommerce site?
We all know that more and more people are increasing the amount of different categories that eCommerce sites have. Say for example, you have over 3,000 different products, all categories contain unique text at the top of each, all of the categories link to each other (so loads on internal linking) and no two categories contain the exact same products. My question is this, is there ever a stage that you could create too many categories? Alternatively, do you think you should just keep creating categories based on what our customers search for?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | the-gate-films1 -
Is it worth redirecting?
Hello! Is there any wisdom or non-wisdom in taking old websites and blogs that may not be very active, but still get some traffic, and redirecting them to a brand new website? The new website would be in the same industry, but not the same niche as the older websites. Would there be any SEO boost to the new website by doing this? Or would it just hurt the credibility of the new website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dieselprogrammers0 -
Product Descriptions for a product with many designs
I'm a newbie with SEO and I have a question regarding product descriptions. Let's say I am selling 100 dog id tags. The tags are all made of same materials, same size, just different designs. Now for the product description, do I need to write a different set of description for all 100 tags? This is an example of a short product description(there's more) for all the pet tags: Personalized with 4 lines of information and 20 characters in each line. Lifetime guarantee - If your pet ID tag ever becomes illegible, we will replace it free of charge. Solid one-piece construction - No glued or ""sandwiched"" materials to wear out or fall apart. Split ring for collar attachement included with EVERY tag. Countless uses - School backpacks, luggage, fashion accessories, and many more! All of the above information pertains to all the pet tags. Can all my product descriptions contain that information, or will I need to modify this 100 times for each individual pet tag? I read up a lot on duplicate content so I am slightly confused. Will this hurt my SEO? Thanks, Keith
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ktw0160 -
How many pages to 301 Redirect
Hi Mozzers, My site has 11,200 pages indexed in Google and I'm looking to remove some of the lesser content which should probably have been picked up by Panda. However these pages work out to about 1,100 in total and I'm not sure whether to remove these bit by bit or just do it in one fell swoop? Does Google not like a site's indexed pages fluctuating too quickly? Are there any other considerations I should be aware of? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | panini0 -
Is it ok to redirect
Hello my question is presently we holding one .com for our website and i see in analytics some time people typing .es version of our site too.. which is not registered yet. is it ok to buy that .es extension and do a redirect to our .com version ? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | idreams0 -
Global Redirection Rules
SEO Moz Community: After twice changing directory software, I have a ton of 404 errors in Webmaster Tools (over 3,000). I've decided to do 301 redirects but can't manually enter in each 404 URL. How can you redirect pages from the same folder on a mass scale? For example, mysite.com/autos has hundreds of pages associated with it (/autos/ford, toyota etc.) How can you do a 301 that redirects all those pages without manually entering in each URL? Site is built on Wordpress
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC0 -
404 Redirecting to the home page
One of my clients that is managing their own server and website recently moved servers. Which then broke their custom 404 page. Instead of fixing this or putting the site back to the old server they redirected the 404 to the home page. I've been working on getting their 404's appropriately redirected, or old urls redirection using a 301 for a month or two. I read the HTTP Status Codes best practices. It just discusses usability. What technical seo back lash can happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | triveraseo0