Infinite 302 redirects on a site using Angular JS
-
I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing here. It's a site that uses Angular JS (version 1) and the crawl is showing infinite 302 redirects, but the redirects are all to the same URL?
Here's an example: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Armco-Park-Foundation
Has anyone seen this before? What causes it and how do I counsel the client on how to fix it?
-
Indeed: thanks for the update. AngularJS is a great technique but relatively new and so much different from the techniques we've gotten used to working with in the past couple of years that this is an interesting case.
Good luck with the project and cool to see more people using AngularJS!
-
Thank you so much for following up, Katherine! We really appreciate it.
-
The pages are definitely 302 redirecting 10+ times - shown in both the Deepcrawl and Screaming Frog data, but not in the tools l like redirect checker. The redirects showed up in Screaming Frog and Deepcrawl.
I got my answer from Nicholas Chimonas who is on the Online Geniuses slack group and I've posted his response below.
-
Google Fetch & Render won't work as the site wasn't set up properly. And I got the data from Deepcrawl AND Screaming Frog, but that didn't help me with the why.
Nicolas Chimonas actually helped me figure it out and posted the answer on the Online Geniuses Slack group as well as the Tech SEO Google+ community, and here it is for all who are curious:
Nicholas ChimonasJun 7, 2016<a data-content="Figured%20I'd%20post%20my%20thoughts%20for%20the%20community%20here%20that%20I%20brought%20up%20in%20the%20Online%20Geniuses%20slack.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EAngular%20is%20throwing%20a%20wrench%20in%20the%20works%2C%20I'm%20not%20sure%20cloaking%20is%20really%20the%20intent%20here%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22proflinkWrapper%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22proflinkPrefix%22%3E%2B%3C%2Fspan%3E%3Ca%20class%3D%22proflink%20aaTEdf%22%20href%3D%22%2F117530250543183103093%22%20oid%3D%22117530250543183103093%22%3ERick%20Bucich%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E%26nbsp%3Byou'll%20notice%20the%20differences%20in%20code%20when%20you%20view-source%20versus%20inspect%20element%20with%20chrome%20dev%20tools.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EExcerpt%20taken%20from%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fipullrank.com%2F6-things-you-should-know-about-in-chrome-devtools%2F%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttp%3A%2F%2Fipullrank.com%2F6-things-you-should-know-about-in-chrome-devtools%2F%3C%2Fa%3E%20%3A%3Cbr%3E%22First%20things%20first%2C%20View%20Source%2C%20we%E2%80%99ve%20had%20great%20times%20together%2C%20but%20it%E2%80%99s%20over.%20In%20the%20post-JavaScript%20age%2C%20there%20is%20little%20value%20in%20looking%20at%20the%20pure%20source%20code%20of%20a%20page%20before%20its%20JavaScript%20transformations.%20In%20fact%2C%20due%20to%20Google%E2%80%99s%20vast%20improvements%20in%20crawling%2C%20this%20is%20a%20fundamental%20flaw%20of%20all%20SEO%20crawling%20tools%20in%20that%20crawlers%20are%20not%20seeing%20the%20code%20as%20the%20user%20or%20Google%20sees%20it.%20Rather%2C%20SEO%20tools%20are%20seeing%20the%20code%20as%20it%E2%80%99s%20downloaded%20and%20not%20as%20it%E2%80%99s%20rendered.%20Granted%2C%20crawling%20with%20headless%20browsers%20is%20both%20slower%20and%20far%20more%20computationally%20expensive%2C%20but%20it%E2%80%99s%20also%20just%20a%20requirement%20at%20this%20point%20given%20the%20adoption%20rate%20of%20JavaScript%20frameworks.%20If%20you%E2%80%99re%20not%20using%20Inspect%20Element%20to%20review%20code%2C%20you%20are%20likely%20missing%20a%20big%20part%20of%20the%20picture.%22%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3ESo..%20with%20that%20in%20mind%2C%20I%20also%20went%20the%20route%20of%20investigating%20the%20page%20with%20different%20user-agents.%20By%20the%20way%2C%20Katherine%20fetched%20the%20URL%20as%20Googlebot%20and%20was%20served%20a%20302%20redirect%20in%20WMT.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EThis%20is%20the%20URL%20as%20Googlebot%20sees%20it%2C%20as%20mentioned%20totally%20different%20outline%2C%20and%20text%2C%20and%20links%20on%20the%20page.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FqQ4kwm2.png%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttp%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FqQ4kwm2.png%3C%2Fa%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EBoth%20of%20these%20red%20boxes%20in%20this%20image%20are%20links%20to%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EWhich%20resolves%20when%20browsing%20as%20Googlebot.%20Notice%20the%20lack%20of%20%2Fus%2F%20prior%20to%20%2Fstory%2F%2C%20navigate%20to%20the%20above%20URL%20and%20you'll%20be%20302%20redirected%20to%20the%20%2Fus%2F%20URL.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EVersus%20when%20I'm%20in%20chrome%2C%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20is%20a%20302%20redirect%20to%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Flw9ta0R.png%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttp%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Flw9ta0R.png%3C%2Fa%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3ESo%20that's%20where%20your%20redirect%20loop%20is%20coming%20from.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EThose%20links%20to%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20which%20are%20highlighted%20in%20red%20boxes%20only%20appear%20for%20Googlebot%2C%20they%20don't%20appear%20on%20the%20human%20browser%2C%20or%20the%20screaming%20frog%20without%20being%20headless%20and%20spoofed%20as%20Googlebot%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3ESo%20when%20Googlebot%20is%20served%20up%20a%20version%20of%20the%20page%20which%20302%20redirects%20them%20from%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20to%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20they%20instead%20are%20once%20again%20served%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20because%20the%20user-agent%20is%20Googlebot%2C%20which%20once%20again%20302%20redirects%20them%20to%20%3Ca%20rel%3D%22nofollow%22%20target%3D%22_blank%22%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%22%20class%3D%22ot-anchor%20aaTEdf%22%20jslog%3D%2210929%3B%20track%3Aclick%22%20dir%3D%22ltr%22%3Ehttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.razoo.com%2Fus%2Fstory%2FArmco-Park-Foundation%3C%2Fa%3E%20etc.%20ad%20infinitum%EF%BB%BF" data-profiledetails="%7B%22profileId%22%3A%22104133087852424173047%22%2C%22realName%22%3A%22Nicholas%20Chimonas%22%7D">Share</a>Figured I'd post my thoughts for the community here that I brought up in the Online Geniuses slack.
Angular is throwing a wrench in the works, I'm not sure cloaking is really the intent here +Rick Bucich you'll notice the differences in code when you view-source versus inspect element with chrome dev tools.
Excerpt taken from http://ipullrank.com/6-things-you-should-know-about-in-chrome-devtools/ :
"First things first, View Source, we’ve had great times together, but it’s over. In the post-JavaScript age, there is little value in looking at the pure source code of a page before its JavaScript transformations. In fact, due to Google’s vast improvements in crawling, this is a fundamental flaw of all SEO crawling tools in that crawlers are not seeing the code as the user or Google sees it. Rather, SEO tools are seeing the code as it’s downloaded and not as it’s rendered. Granted, crawling with headless browsers is both slower and far more computationally expensive, but it’s also just a requirement at this point given the adoption rate of JavaScript frameworks. If you’re not using Inspect Element to review code, you are likely missing a big part of the picture."So.. with that in mind, I also went the route of investigating the page with different user-agents. By the way, Katherine fetched the URL as Googlebot and was served a 302 redirect in WMT.
This is the URL as Googlebot sees it, as mentioned totally different outline, and text, and links on the page.
http://i.imgur.com/qQ4kwm2.png
Both of these red boxes in this image are links to https://www.razoo.com/story/Armco-Park-Foundation
Which resolves when browsing as Googlebot. Notice the lack of /us/ prior to /story/, navigate to the above URL and you'll be 302 redirected to the /us/ URL.
Versus when I'm in chrome, https://www.razoo.com/story/Armco-Park-Foundation is a 302 redirect tohttps://www.razoo.com/us/story/Armco-Park-Foundation
http://i.imgur.com/lw9ta0R.png
So that's where your redirect loop is coming from.
Those links to https://www.razoo.com/story/Armco-Park-Foundation which are highlighted in red boxes only appear for Googlebot, they don't appear on the human browser, or the screaming frog without being headless and spoofed as Googlebot
So when Googlebot is served up a version of the page which 302 redirects them fromhttps://www.razoo.com/story/Armco-Park-Foundation to https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Armco-Park-Foundation they instead are once again served https://www.razoo.com/story/Armco-Park-Foundation because the user-agent is Googlebot, which once again 302 redirects them to https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Armco-Park-Foundation etc. ad infinitum
-
Sounds like Deepcrawl, Screaming Frog, and Google Fetch & Render.
-
Hi Katherine,
Hmm difficult to answer that question since we don't know the techniques you are using on this site. Apart from AngularJS.
This site show me a 200-header code. Which is an indication that everything is OK.
http://www.webconfs.com/http-header-check.php
What site gave you the 302-header code? One of MOZ's tools?
Bas
-
I should clarify that I'm seeing the redirect chain in Deepcrawl and Screaming Frog, and via Google's fetch and render tool inside Google Search Console.
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
-
Using Similar Expired URLs to Send Traffic to My Site
Thanks in advance for any help! I have an existing website with content on a particular topic. I have discovered a few similar expired URLs that might still get some traffic. One in particular still has a number of valid links from other sites. Would it make sense for me to buy those URLs (which are really cheap) and just use them to send that traffic to my site? If so, am I better using a 301 redirect or having a home page on the new site that just mentions that the old site is expired, and that they might want to instead link over to my site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alanjosephs0 -
Does 302 redirects pass link juice ? - I've read conflicting reports
Hi Mozzers Ive noticed that I have some 302 redirects on my website which have been there for some time . They should really 301's but I am wondering if 302s pass link juice or not as from what I've read they don't so I just wanted to check if anyone knew for sure, thanks pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
If you do 302 redirect then change to 301 redirect do you lose all link juice?
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with understanding the following story: A website has been moved from its HTTP version to a HTTPS version. The SEO manager has advised developers that they needed to do 301 redirects. However, in the end, 302 redirects have been put in place instead. Now, 301s should be put in place ASAP. The million dollar question is: has the website lost all of its link juice already given the nature of the redirects? Also, does it depend on whether Google has indexed the new 302 pages or does it depend on something else? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingGH0 -
Robots.txt - Do I block Bots from crawling the non-www version if I use www.site.com ?
my site uses is set up at http://www.site.com I have my site redirected from non- www to the www in htacess file. My question is... what should my robots.txt file look like for the non-www site? Do you block robots from crawling the site like this? Or do you leave it blank? User-agent: * Disallow: / Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/sitemap.xml Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/video-sitemap.xml
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | morg454540 -
Moving career site to new URL from main site. Will it hurt SEO for main page?
For one of our clients we are building a career site and putting it under a different URL and hosting service (mainly due to security concerns of hosting it under the same host and domain). almost 100% of the incoming traffic to their current career section (which it is in a sub-folder) receives traffic for branded keywords (brand + job/career/employment), that is, there are no job position specific keywords. The client is now worried that after moving the site, the inbound traffic to the main site will be severely affected as well as the SERP results. My questions are, will the non-career related SERPs be affected? I don't see how will they be but I could be wrong If no, how could we reassure her that the SEO to the main site wont be affected? are there any case studies of a similar case (splitting part of the website under a new URL and hosting service?) Thank you for your help. PS: this is my first post so please forgive me if this has been asked before. I could not find a good response.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rflores0 -
Troubled QA Platform - Site Map vs Site Structure
I'm running a Q&A forum that was built prioritizing UX over SEO. This decision has cause a bit of a headache as we're 6 months into the project with 2278 Q&A pages with extremely minimal traffic coming from search engines. The structure has the following hiccups: A. The category navigation from the main Q&A page is entirely javascript and only navigable by users. B. We identify Google bots and send them to another version of the Q&A platform w/o javascript. Category links don't exist in this google bot version of the main Q&A page. On this Google version of the main Q&A page, the Pinterest-like tiles displaying individual Q&As are capped at 10. This means that the only way google bot can identify link juice being passed down to individual QAs (after we've directed them to this page) is through 10 random Q&As. C. All 2278 of the QAs are currently indexed in search. They are just indexed very very poorly in SERPs. My personal assumption, is that Google can't pass link juice to any of the Q&As (poor SERP) but registers them from the site map so it gets included in Google's index. My dilemma has me struggling between two different decisions: 1. Update the navigation in the header to remove the javascript and fundamentally change the look and feel of the Q&A platform. This will allow Google bot to navigate through Expert category links to pass link juice to all Q&As. or 2. Update the redirected main Q&A page to include hard coded category links with 100s of hard coded Q&As under each category page. Make it similar, ugly, flat and efficient for the crawling bots. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I need to find a solution as soon as possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TQContent0 -
301 Redirects?
We have an e-commerce website with about 4500 products for sale. About 1200 of these items were not showing up in the Google PLA ads because they were $0 dollar items, so we made those products invisible. Then Set 301 Redirects for each of the 1200 items. My question is this; we want to turn back on the 1200 items, should we delete the 301 redirects that are in place for them.? Will it hurt SEO performance by having them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Goriilla0 -
Does having many 302 redirects on a site hurt rankings?
I am working with an affiliate website which has many product listings but the "Buy Now" button on each product listing is an external link (affiliate link) to the appropriate product page on the actual website where the product can be bought. Each of these external links passes through an internal redirect, which is implemented as a 302. Consequently, when SEOmoz crawls that site, it gives me a warning that there are hundreds of 302 redirects on the site. Do you think this will hurt the site's potential to rank? Should I remove the redirects and leave them as direct links to the external site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexFusman0