301 redirect new site design
-
Hi
I'm just setting up some 301 redirects for a new site design about to go live.
The old site structure had some 'overview' pages in the urls (without any content) that just 302'd to a sub page.
Do i need 301 redirect these overview page urls or since they had no content theres no need and I probably shouldn't or should i ?
Also for pages that have no direct equivalent replacement is it still best to 301 to nearest relevant page or just leave it. For example a thank you page that currently shows after user submits email form wont be on new site (since message shows on form page after submission rather than new page). Should i 301 to form page or just leave it ?
Cheers
Dan
-
Strange, I can! May be should try after some time
-
i cant open it
-
many thanks
-
This might help - http://eliteeternity.com/mass-redirections-wordpress/
Thanks,
-
no the overview pages never had any content and have always been 302' which is why im changing to 301 as well as the url structure
its wordpress and just needs a csv file but i just want to know how to set up the csv file, i.e. is it just 2 columns old and new urls or do i need to add column headers etc etc ?
any advice much appreciated ?
cheers
dan
-
Dan, for the old 'overview' pages, if they were indexed or had some content anytime or if you know/feel that they have backlinks, please redirect them as well to the new url. Also, it is not good to have 302s on the URLs unless and untill there is a specific case for it which I doubt will be. Always have 301 redirects.
On bulk uploading, it depends on your CMS, right? How does it support the file format and accepts the protocol is CMS dependent thing.
-
Thanks for your comments Akhil !
Im 301'ing all content pages (yes all indexed previously)
The empty 'overview' pages had no content and were temporarily redirected to a sub page. The sub-page i have 301'd to the new url so i take it i can just leave the old 'overview' pages alone ?
Yes site has authority and is ranking pretty well for all target keywords hence why im concerned about doing the 301's correctly.
What about the csv file for bulk uploading 301's , is it as easy as i have mentioned above or do i need to do more/add more info to the file ?
All Best
Dan
-
Hey Dan - You should be adding 301 redirects if the pages are indexed. But, as a safe route you should be adding a 301 redirect since they were present on the website and can be linked from an external source as well which may lead to its indexation later.
You should redirect all such pages so as to ensure that the search engines do not find 404s on your site or probably you could block them from the robots.txt file.
Also, If the page has some authority in the search engines - authority refers to link juice, sites linking it or rankings or any traffic, best is to redirect it to the alternative or close page so as to pass the authority or if the page does not have any authority and you would want to reduce the 301 redirects on your server, block it! This call would largely depend on the page's value but in any case, do not just delete it.
-
Many Thanks Stefan
the overview page is the empty one and is 302 so presume then i can just leave it/not redirect
also if im bulk uploading 301 redirects what does one need ot do to create a csv file is it just a case of creating an excel spreadsheet & have old urls in colunm A and new in column B and then just convert to csv and upload ? or do i need to put in other details or paremeters etc etc ?
many thanks
dan
-
Hello!
I would just check in Google what pages Google has indexed. Then do redirects from those urls to the new ones. Also check what urls other sites link to and make sure those are redirected to their new urls.
For your overview pages I would redirect the empty page and and the overview page. Just in case you get traffic on both.
Non important pages (like your thank you page) I wouldn't redirect.
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
-
Should I set 301 Redirects or keep old permalinks?
I just built a new site for a client and the new site has pretty links like domain.com/about-us. The old site has been around for a VERY long time and had links like domain.com/aboutus. I want to do 301 redirects because from my understanding, it minimizes the negative SEO impact. But the client wants to keep the permalinks without the hyphens to match the old links. What is the best route, considering SEO? BTW, the site is still on the same domain. Thanks in advance for your help! Neik
Technical SEO | | glassh0use0 -
301 Domain Redirect And Old Domain to a New one including pages
Hi, I need to 301 an old domain to a new one (new website) I need to 301 the domain to a new page not the new domain direct for example www.olddomain.co.uk to www.newdomain.co.uk/pagenew Then I need to also 301 all the other pages on the old domain to the new one for example... www.oldmain.co.uk/oldpage to www.newdomain.co.uk/newpage Issue is I can do one or the other not both, I can get the other pages to redirect but then the main domain wont redirect to the correct new page. Or I can get the old domain to redirect but not the internal pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | David-Sharpe0 -
Redirects on multi language site and language detection
Hello! I have a multi language site in German and English. The site ranked well for the brand name and for German keywords. But after switching to a contend delivery network and changing the language detection method from browser language to IP location the site had indexing and ranking problems. Also in SERP the English homepage is shown for German keywords. On the other hand the language detection method is more accurate now. Current setup: The languages are separated via a folder structure for the languages: www.site.com/**en **and www.site.com/de. If the users IP is in Germany he is redirected via 302 from .com to .com/de. The rest of the world is redirected via 302 to .com/en. So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks. Each folder has one sitemap under /de/sitemap.xml and /en/sitemap.xml. Each site and the root (.com, .com/de, .com/en) was added to WMT (no geo targeting) and the sitemaps were added (on the root domain both sitemaps and on the language specific sites just one). The sitemaps have no hreflang tag. Each page has an hreflang tag in the header pointing to itself and the alternate language. hreflang="x-default" is not set anywhere. Also on each page is a link to change language. Goals: From an SEO point of view we primarily target German speaking people. But a lot of international people (US, South America, Europe) search for our brand name so we want to serve them the English site. Therefore we want to: Get all the link juice when someone links to www.site.com to the German site Show Germans the German site in SERP and all others the English one Still serve the language automatically based on the location Do you have any idea how to achieve this? I think our main problem is that we want to push the German site the most but still serve the English site for most people (and therefore the Google Bot). Also does submitting the same sitemap twice (on the domain site and folders) do any harm? Any help oder links to ressources are greatly appreciated. I read a ton of articles but they are mostly for the case that english is the default language. Thanks for you help Moz community! Alex
Technical SEO | | AlexBLN1 -
Switching forum software - 301 redirects?
Hi everyone I'm working on a successful Wordpress site that also has a forum attached. The forum currently uses YAF forum software, which requires Windows hosting. The site owner wants to switch to Linux hosting. This is not a problem for WP, but it does mean that we'll need to transfer the forum to Xenforo or something similar that runs on Linux. We're OK with the technical side of this, but we're worried about the SEO implications. The URL for every forum post (more than 50,000 of them) is going to change during this transfer. It seems completely impractical to 301 each of those, so should I just 301 the URLs that have inbound links? Also, what is google's algo going to think when we suddenly have ~50,000 404s? Many thanks in advance! J
Technical SEO | | van280 -
To 301 redirect or not...
Hi guys i'd like to get your opinion on this. We currently have two sites, site A is the old one with PA44 and DA33. Site B is the new one which is going to replace site A it currently has PA37 and DA24 Our plan for the future is to shut down site A and redirect all pages using 301 to the relevant pages on side B. Currently we have some links in place for a couple of keywords on site A to site B which seems to be working great for our ranking. Now i'm wondering if this is maybe a good option, to give back links from A to B or will i pass through more link juice when redirecting everything? (ps. both are e commerce sites hosted and registred with different companies)
Technical SEO | | Immanuel0 -
Suddenly Many 301 Redirects captured by SEOMOZ
On April the 7th SeoMOZ captured 6000 301 redirect on my site, but I cant seem to understand how SEOMOZ finds these links Example http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Makes a 301 Redirect to the following page beneath SEOMOZ says http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html The weird thing is that both urls work, but if i browse my site in a normal matter this link will never be created i that way. The -4a in the end os the link is not the normal link structure on the site and has never been like that before. So how does SEOMOZ Create that link? http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Also google only has the right one that are this one beneath http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html People would normal come to the category with this url http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/ And page 2 would be http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html AND NOT http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Can anyone find out what is going on?
Technical SEO | | noerdar0 -
New Website, New URL, New Content - What do we do with the old site? Are 301's the only option?
We've just built a new site for a client. They were adamant on changing the url. The new site is entirely new content, however the subject mater is the same. Some pages are even titled very similarly. Is is advisable to keep the old site running, and link it to the new site? Permanently, or temporarily? Do we simply place redirects from the old site the new? Old site was 30 pages, new site is 80 pages. So redirects won't be available to all the new pages. It seems a shame to trash the old site, it is getting some good traffic, and the content - although outdated is unique and of a high quality. Old url is 4+ yrs old, the new url is new. Some enlightened opinions would be greatly welcomed. Thanks
Technical SEO | | MarketsOnline0 -
How long should I keep 301 redirects?
I have modified a the URL structure of a whole section of a website and used mod_rewrite 301 redirect to match the new structure. Now that was around 3 months ago and I was wondering how long should I keep this redirect for? As it is a new website I am quite sure that there are no links around with the old URL structure but still I can see the google bot trying from time to time to access the old URL structure. Shouldn't the google bot learn from this 301 redirect and not go anymore for the old URL?
Technical SEO | | socialtowards0