301 redirection help needed!
-
Hi all,
So if we used to have a domain (let's say olddomain.com) and we had a new site created at newdomain.com how do we properly setup redirects page to page. Caveat, the urls have changed so for instance the old page oldomain.com/service is now newdomain.com/our-services on the new site.
- Do we need to have hosting on the old site?
- Do we need to setup individual 301s for each page corresponding to the new page?
Just looking for the easiest way to do this CORRECTLY.
Thanks,
Ricky
-
Good one Paul - is there an article on this you can point me at?
Thanks
-
Hi Paul, thanks! This is what I was looking for. So as long as we forward the old domain, it looks like we can set up the individual URL redirects simply using a plugin in Wordpress. Got it to work!
-
There's no reason to keep the old hosting just for the redirects. And that introduces a real weak point as at some future date, someone who doesn't realise it's still running only an htaccess file will delete what they think is unnecessary hosting.
Instead, use DNS of the old domain to point it to the new domain and then write the redirects in the new domain's htaccess.
Paul
P.S. And yes, you'll need to write redirects for each old URL that changes. If there are patterns of URLs, it's worth using regex to cut down the number of redirects written.
-
You have to do page by page like Nigel suggested that is the best way to do it and keep them in place for ever!.
-
Hi Ricky
That is pretty much exactly what you need to do.
301 olddomain to newdomain
Then at page level
301 olddomain/services to newdomain/new-services
You will need hosting on the old site but only really so that the .htaccess file can be filled with redirects. If you let the domain expire then Google et al won't see the redirects. If there are inbound links from other websites then you need to do this to maintain link equity to the new domain and pages.
Regards
Nigel
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
-
Is domain authority lost if you create a 301 redirect but mark it as noindex, nofollow?
Hi everyone, Our company sells products in various divisions. While we've been selling Product A and Product B under our original brand, we've recently created a new division with a new domain to focus on a Product B. The new domain has virtually no domain authority (3) while the original domain has some (37). We want customers to arrive on the new domain when they search for key search terms related to Product B instead of the pages that previously existed on our main website. If we create 301 redirects for the pages and content on the main site and add noindex, nofollow tags, will we lose the domain authority that we have from our original domain because the pages now have the noindex, nofollow tags? I read a few blog posts from Moz that said there isn't any domain authority lost with 301 redirects but I'm not sure if that is true if the pages are noindex, nonofollow. Do you follow? 🙂 Apologies for the lengthy post. Love this community and the great Moz team. Thanks, Joe
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jgoehring-troy0 -
Redirects Being Removed...
Hi We have a team in France who deal with the backend of the site, only problem is it's not always SEO friendly. I have lots of 404's showing in webmaster tools and I know some of them have previously had redirects. If we update a URL on the site, any links pointing to it on the website are updated straight away to point to the most up to date URL - so the user doesn't have to go through a redirect. However, the team would see this as the redirect not being 'used' after about 30 days and remove it from the database - so this URL no longer has any redirects pointing to it. My question is, surely this is bad for SEO? However I'm a little unsure as they aren't actually going through the redirect. But somewhere in cyber space the authority of this page must drop? Any advice is welcome 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Shall I use a 301 or 302 redirect when people leave the company?
Hello, At my company, we have instances where client-facing people leave the company and so we need to remove their profile page from the website. As opposed to people receiving a 404 when they search for them, I thought it would be best to divert visitors to a generic landing page to explain that the person they are looking for has left the company with details on how to get in touch. I'm tempted to use a 302 redirect so the person they are searching for stays in the search results longer. But longer-term, will this cause any harm? Should it be eventually be turned into a 301 redirect? Or should I just use a 301 in the first instance. Thanks in advance, Stu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stuart260 -
301 redirect or Link back from old to new pages
Hi all, We run a ticket agent, and have multiple events that occur year after year, for example a festival. The festival has a main page with each event having a different page for each year like the below: Main page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gigantictickets
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-tickets (main page) Event pages:
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/hawksbrook-lane-beckenham/2009-08-15-13-00-gce/11246a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2010-08-14-13-00-gce/19044a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2011-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2011-08-13-13-00-gce/26204a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2012-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2012-06-29-12-00-gce/32168a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2013/highhams-hill-farm/2013-07-12-12-00 my question is: Is it better to leave the old event pages active and link them back to the main page, or 301 redirect these pages once they're out of date? (leave them there until there is a new event page to replace it for this year) If the best answer is to leave the page there, should i use a canonical tag back to the main page? and what would be the best way to link back? there is a breadcrumb there now, but it doesn't seem to obvious for users to click this. Keywords we're aming for on this example are 'Leefest Tickets', which has good ranking now, the main page and 2012 page is listed. Thanks in advance for your help.0 -
Restructuring/Removing 301 Redirects Due To Newly Optimized Keywords
Just to be clear, this is for one unique page on a website. Also, please see my diagram attached. Let's say that a page's URL was originally /original. So, you optimize the page for a new keyword (keyword 1), and therefore change the URL to /keyword-1. A 301 redirect would then be placed... /original > /keyword-1 However, let's say 6 months down the road you realize that the keyword you optimized the page for (keyword 1) just isn't working. You research for a new keyword, and come up with (keyword 2). So, you'd like to rename the page's URL to /keyword-2. After placing a redirect from the current page (keyword 1) to the 'now' new page (keyword 2), it would look like this... /original > /keyword-1 > /keyword-2 We know that making a server go through more than one redirect slows the server load time, and even more 'link-juice' is lost in translation. Because of this, would it make sense to remove the original redirect and instead place redirects like this? /original > /keyword-2 /keyword-1 > /keyword-2 To me, this would make the most sense for preserving SEO. However, I've read that removing 301 redirects can cause user issues due to browsers caching the now 'removed' redirect. Even if this is ideal for SEO, could it be more work than it's worth? Does anyone have any experience/input on this? If so, I greatly appreciate your time! oDvLl.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LogicalMediaGroup1 -
Seeking Help with Domain Acquisition Redirect Strategy
My company is purchasing www.boughtsite.com. This new site has multiple sub-domain sites: customsite1.boughtsite.com, customsite2.boughtsite.com, etc. 1. Is it possible to redirect everything from www.boughtsite.com to www.mycompanysite.com while leaving the other sub-domain sites active? These other sites have different audiences than our main site. 2. Would it be an okay solution to just place a link on boughtsite.com to mycompanysite.com telling visitors "We have been re-branded to My Company" 3. Can I use an i-frame to move customsite1.boughtsite.com to www.mycompanysite.com/customsite1 instead? Thanks for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Redirects 301
Hello guys, I have a doubt. If I reedirect a url with a pagerank of 2 to a new URL, will I loose the PR? My problem is that I have a long url in one page wich is not effective to target a keyword that Im persuing. Im climbing in Google, however I want to 1º place and I dont think that with this long URL I will make it. Advices? Cheers! Pedro M Pereira
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroM0 -
301 redirect every pages?
Good evening, my question might sound stupid but please forgive me, I am still learning SEO. If I build a new site that will replace an existing site. Is there any point to do a 301 redirect for pages that had no inbound link so, no juice to pass? I kind of think that it would be a better practice to 301 redirect each pages to a page that make sense on the new web site .... but here is why I think that. Why I say that If I am lucky, many of my old web site pages will be indexed, many of them having no inbound links. So once the new web site online, until all my new web sites pages are indexed, I could imagine Google would send people to the index pages (the old ones that do not exist anymore)... I am right? So in that case, if I do a 301 redirect only for pages that have inbound links, the user would end up on a 404 page. Could you tell me if it make sense how I think? Thanks a lot !! Nancy P.S. I would not redirect if it make no sense to the user. I fully understand that we must always keep the user experience in mind in any 404 and 301 redirect decisions. But to simplify the question, just suppose it is ok from a user perspective to map every old site pages to a page in new web site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EnigmaSolution0