undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Meta descriptions and h1 tags during a 301 redirect

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Meta descriptions and h1 tags during a 301 redirect

Technical SEO
3
3
754
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • ptapley
    ptapley Subscriber last edited by May 27, 2015, 8:24 PM

    My employer is shifting to a new domain and i am in the midst of doing URL mapping. I realize that many of the meta descriptions and H1 tags are different on the new pages - is this a problem ?

    Thank you.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ClaytonJ
      ClaytonJ last edited by May 28, 2015, 12:40 PM May 28, 2015, 3:56 AM

      Matt's answer below is spot on.

      I add that if the site is ranking well for the key pages then I would try and mimic the Title tags and H1's in transition. Why change a good thing.

      However if the site is not ranking well or can be improved then the transition is the perfect opportunity to review the Title tag and H1. Undertake some keyword analysis and optimize the Title tags and H1's for search today. Always good to review and maybe eliminate some duplication etc. that always creeps in with mine.

      The meta descriptions in my experience is irrelevant to SEO - only the title tag and H1, out of the 3.  However the meta description does have an impact on CTR which in my view is just as important. So ensure carefully crafted and sending the customer a reason to click through to your website.

      MattAntonino

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • MattAntonino
        MattAntonino last edited by May 28, 2015, 12:40 PM May 27, 2015, 9:05 PM

        Ideally you will want to map each page to the most relevant page. Most relevant doesn't always mean identical or even "all that similar" but even the Matt Cutts video on the same topic says get as close as possible.

        Sometimes a 301 is done as the brand is changing part of what they do. Again, all you can do if you don't offer a particular service is come close. Think about the user - if you were a wedding, portrait & commercial photographer and you stop doing weddings where would you direct these visitors? Well nothing on the site is going to be completely relevant so ... should you direct them to portraits? Maybe create a new page that says "we no longer shoot weddings but recommend these 4 photographers:" or should you just redirect to homepage?

        If your goal is to keep as much of the SEO juice as possible, direct it to the closest page - this maybe homepage or portraits page in the above case. If you want to provide the best user experience, perhaps the "We don't shoot it" page - so it depends on your goals.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • 1 / 1
        1 out of 3
        • First post
          1/3
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        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.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • GhillC

          Duplicated titles and meta descriptions

          Hi, Dealing with both my duplicated titles and meta descriptions i'm wondering if there's a "quick" win I could potentially implement asap. A bit of background:
          Say I've 4 pages structured that way: domain.com/us/productA.html for the US domain.com/gb/productA.html the UK domain.com/fr/productA.html for France domain.com/de/productA.html For Germany At the moment, both my page titles and meta-descriptions are duplicated all over the place for product A.
          Title is reading "Product A - company name"
          MD is a bit better, being translated in all 3 languages (En, Fr, DE). Therefore being the same for the US and for the UK. Ideally, I would get unique page titles and MD all over the place. However, due to time and resource constraints, I can't make it happen overnight. So my questions are pretty simple:
          1. Can I create a rule for page titles to be "Product A - country - company name" or similar? Would that be enough to make the page titles unique? Is there any value doing so?
          2. Can I "localize" duplicate MD by simply naming the country? I assume it is not enough in this case as all the rest would be copy/pasted. Ideally speaking, both my page titles and MD would be completely unique but I can't afford doing so in the short term. Thanks!

          Technical SEO | Apr 5, 2024, 8:52 AM | GhillC
          0
        • kevinpark191

          Can a H1 Tag Have Multiple Spans Within It?

          H1 tags on my client's website follow the template [Service] + [Location]. These two have their own span, meaning there are two spans in an H1 tag. class="what">Truck Repair near class="where">California, CA How do crawl bots see this? Is that okay for SEO?

          Technical SEO | May 9, 2018, 3:36 AM | kevinpark191
          0
        • Shirley.Fenlason

          If you use canonicals do the meta descriptions need to be different?

          For example, we have 3 different subsites with the same pages. We will put canonicals so they reference the main pages. Do the meta descriptions have to be different for each of the three pages? How does Google handle meta data when using canonicals?

          Technical SEO | Aug 8, 2016, 6:15 PM | Shirley.Fenlason
          0
        • ztalk112

          301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?

          Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.

          Technical SEO | Nov 10, 2014, 8:08 PM | ztalk112
          0
        • gfiedel

          Error: Missing Meta Description Tag on pages I can't find in order to correct

          This seems silly, but I have errors on blog URLs in our WordPress site that I don't know how to access because they are not in our Dashboard. We are using All in One SEO. The errors are for blog archive dates, authors and just simply 'blog'. Here are samples: http://www.fateyes.com/2012/10/
          http://www.fateyes.com/author/gina-fiedel/
          http://www.fateyes.com/blog/ Does anyone know how to input descriptions for pages like these?
          Thanks!!

          Technical SEO | Jan 12, 2013, 4:32 AM | gfiedel
          0
        • Gotmoxie

          How do I fix a 301 Redirect Loop?

          Saturday I waas doing some correcting of some duplicate titles, including nofollowing tags, etc. (my main problem was duplicate titles due to tags and categories being indexed). Now this morning I see that one of my pages refuses to load, citing a 301 redirect loop. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/feeding/switching-baby-formula/ Originally, the page was posted under the wrong category. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/uncategorized/switching-baby-formula I resaved it under the correct category (feeding) and now it won't load. Can someone help me figure out how to correct this mess? Thanks so much Heather

          Technical SEO | Dec 12, 2012, 1:25 PM | Gotmoxie
          0
        • Adrian_Kingwell

          What tools produce a complete list of all URLs for 301 redirects?

          I am project managing the rebuild of a major corporate website and need to set up 301 redirects from the old pages to the new ones. The problem is that the old site sits on multiple CMS platforms so there is no way I can get a list of pages from the old CMS. Is there a good tool out there that will crawl through all the sites and produce a nice spreadsheet with all the URLs on it? Somebody mentioned Xenu but I have never used it. Any recommendations? Thanks -Adrian

          Technical SEO | Feb 24, 2012, 8:34 AM | Adrian_Kingwell
          0
        • NetPicks

          How do I add meta descriptions to Archives in Wordpress?

          My most recent crawl returned a number of 'missing meta description' errors, and when I checked individual URLs, it turned out they were Wordpress Archived pages - for individual months and days (e.g. http:// .../2011/01). What's the best way to go about adding descriptions to these pages, if at all? Or should I have these pages not be indexed? I am using the All in One SEO plugin, so maybe there is an easy fix through this plugin, or it may be the cause of these errors? Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance! **EDIT After looking it up further, I have decided to use noindex for Archives, which should solve my problem right? Or is there a benefit to having those archived pages?

          Technical SEO | Jun 22, 2011, 9:54 PM | NetPicks
          0

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.