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 Redirects... Redirect all content at once or in increments?
Hello, I have been reading a lot about site migration and 301s and sometimes get confused with conflicting suggestions from different sources... So, in a site migration. Should I 301 redirect all old URLs to the news at once or little by little? I've see this Google handout that suggests doing it all at once (minute 13)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Koki.Mourao
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cfco632lor7bl55j3tg1g8332l0 But also have read the opposite in other forums...0 -
303 Redirects Search Engine Friendly?
Do 303 redirects work more like 301s or more like 302s when it comes to passing SEO authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
301 redirect subdirectory to new domain
I'm planning on using 301 redirects to spin out a subdirectory of my current website to be its own separate domain. For instance, I currently have a website www.website.com and my writers write tech news at www.website.com/news. Now I want to 301 redirect www.website.com/news to www.technews.com. Will this have any negative impact on SEO? What are some steps that I can take to minimize these impacts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Bishop1 -
Which automatic redirects to use in International SEO
Hi, I need help with international SEO redirects. I'm going to have intelligencebank.com/au for Australian visitors and intelligencebank.com for the rest of the world. I would like to automatically redirect aus users that land on .com to .com/au and vice versa for non-australian users. 1. Which automatic redirects should I use: a) java script because it will allow US based google bots to crawl my /au website (bots won't read javascript so they won't be redirected) b) http redirects c) 301 redirects d) 302 redirects e) anything else? a) Should I still use rel alternate even though I only use english? b) if I should add rel alternate, can I still keep my existing rel canonical tags that are use to avoid duplicate content (I use a lot of utm codes when advertising)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intelligencebank0 -
Implementing Large-Scale Redirects
Hello All, I have a situation with my site where a vendor created a local directory of locations on a sub-domain of my site. This sub-domain has approximately 2000 pages. It is a PR3 and a good backlink profile (not many links. Mostly citations. Not spammed). It get decent traffic but 80% of the traffic is driven by ppc. We have created a new local section on the main page of our website and we are trying to weigh the benefit of redirecting all of those pages on the old sub-domain. We anticipate that this new section will begin to replace the old sub-domain in serps. Additionally, when our deal with the company that manages this sub-domain ends in three months, the pages will no longer exist. Is it worth redirecting the pages (you might need more information to give good insight into that)? Also, if we do implement approx. 2000 redirects, what effect will that have on the main site from an SEO perspective. Is it possible that Google might ignore this large scale redirect effort? Will the value also be limited by the fact the redirect might only be live for a month before the original pages are deleted? Any help/insight with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ResponseMine0 -
GEO IP Redirects affecting Organic Rankings
Not sure if anyone has ever had this problem. We have a client who is a UK based retailer with a large retail presence in Canada and a U.S site as well. For the past year while keeping track of their rankings, they steadily ranked #1 for their brand term on Google.CA. At the end of June we implemented a GEO IP redirect for U.S visitors to be redirected to the U.S site if they clicked on the .CA listing. Over the next two weeks the ranking for the single branded keyword went from #1 to completely off the top 50. Could this have possibly happened due to the GEO IP redirect? The .CO.UK site has always been top 3 in the organic listing and is still #1 but in Google.ca the Canadian site has dropped off completely after consistently ranking #1.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | demacmedia0 -
Redirection question
How would I redirect this URL: http://www.members.mysite.com/ to this URL: http://www.mysite.com/ ? I cant figure it out
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
How long do 301 redirects have to stay in place?
For a large retail site we have plenty of "old" pages that are 2-3 years old and still have 301 redirects to a new page. After a search engine has recognized a 301 redirect and dropped the "Old" URL from the index and started displaying the "New" URL, is it safe to delete that old page and thus remove the 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOmoxy0