How do I handle this 301/indexing mess?
-
I'm working on a client's site and noticed a brisk drop in rankings. In doing some digging I found that the homepage (domain.com) is 301'd to domain.com/home.html. Here's my problem/questions:
1. domain.com is indexed by Google
2. domain.com/home.html is not indexed by Google
3. both domains have some healthy linking
4. Is the fact that domain.com/home.html impacting rankings?
5. How do carefully handle this situation (ex. redirect domain.com/home.html back to domain.com?)
6. See the attached jpeg for a visual representation of my debacle.
-
Why would you redirect the naked domain to home.html? I'd personally would have that home.html renamed to the default page that your server serves as the index, probably index.html and then look if there are any canonical tags in home.html pointing to the named domain + if there are any restrictions for robots to index the page, in the file itself and in the robots.txt file.
If you can provide us with the URL, we would be able to check a little deeper.
Hope that helps.
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
-
SEO Strategy - Content/Outreach/Links
Hi everyone I'm trying to prioritise my tasks for 2018 & wondered if anyone had any useful templates they use? In terms of SEO tasks, my priority was going to be content/outreach/links - Focusing on user guides/blogs onsite Then outreach articles/some PR that doesn't go against Google guidelines offsite. My struggle with the onsite content/blogs we produce is we have no real social media plan/manager so my content outreach always seems hampered by this. I've tried taking on some of the social stuff, but this ends up being too much for just me to do. I wondered if there were any other SEOs who face this issue and who have found some good solutions? I'm stuck in a bit of a rut and can't seem to effectively push forward with outreach/content writing. Thank you Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
No Index Question
Hello, We are attempting to have the following page removed from Google search results: view-source:http://www.mndaily.com/1998/04/08/missing-student-has-disappeared A noindex tag was added but we aren't sure if it was done correctly. I'm wondering if there are any experts here that might be able to confirm that this was added correctly and will result in the removal of the page from search results. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonMPLS0 -
If I hired you/your company to do my SEO ...
If i hired you or your company to do SEO for my site (http://goo.gl/XUH3f) what would be the first steps you'd take? I'm pretty sure i've covered all of the basics myself, I'm just left trying to figure out what i should do next... rankings have been going up and down for the last few weeks, but even when they're up, they're not high enough 🙂 (and then they go back down anyway) ... I know some of you are going to say build links, please at least give me an example of one or two sites you'd try to get to link to mine... I'm open to any advice or feedback as I'm just a website owner who's been doing their own SEO & learning on the fly... Thanks a lot!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850 -
Penguin/Panda/Domain Purchase
If I move forward with the acquisition: 1. Should I, if there is a way, just acquire the domain and then attempt to unlink existing links? 2. Can I just buy the domain, completely kill the site, and then build again from scratch? Even if I do that, the links to the domain will still be out there. 3. Should I even move forward with the purchase if I know these tactics have been used? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles0 -
Question about 301 redirect for trailing / ?
I am cleaning up a fairly large site. Some pages have a trailing slash on the end some don't. Some of the existing backlinks built used a trailing slash in the url and some didn't. We aren't concerned with picking a particular one but just want to get one set and stick to it from now on. I am wondering, would I clean this up within the same redirect in the htaccess file that takes care of the www and non www? example RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PEnterprises
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] I currently use that to redirect the www. to the non www as you can see. However here is what I was confused about. Would this code be enough to redirect ALL pages with a / to the ones without? or would I also need to add another code (so there is 2) to my htaccess like below? RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] That way, now, even the non www pages with a trailing slash will redirect to the non www without the trailing slash. Hopefully you understand what I am getting at. I just want to redirect EVERYTHING to the non www WITHOUT a / Thank you Jake0 -
Need some help with a tricky 301
I can't find anything online that deals with this issue. I have a page getting indexed by Google at mydomain.com/widgets and I don't know why. No links to it anywhere. The page it is closest to is mydomain.com/reviews/widgets and so I tried to set up a 301 to point one to the other. The problem is each individual widget review is at mydomain.com/widgets/reviews/products/widget-name and so when I redirect /widgets to mydomain.com/reviews/widgets it also redirects each individual product to mydomain.com/reviews/widgets/reviews/products/widget-name. Is there some way to just redirect /widgets without having it affect each product review? I cannot change URL structure either, nature of the site. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster0 -
Should I index tag pages?
Should I exclude the tag pages? Or should I go ahead and keep them indexed? Is there a general opinion on this topic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikkiGaul0 -
WWW vs Non-WWW/Moving a site to a new CMS/Redirect all of the previous URLs
We are working on a new design for a website, which is currently on a CMS that has non-seo-friendly URLs. There is no redirection of 'www' to non-www or vice versa, or handling of homepage redirection so there is only one instance of 'home'. To move the site in the future, all of these URLs will have to be redirected to their new, and I hope, seo-friendly counterparts. Is it prudent now to redirect the four home page links so there is only one? and to redirect all non-www to 'www' so there is only one instance of each page? Or should I leave it and redirect all of them when the time comes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | haan_seo0