Can ht access file affect page load times
-
We have a large and old site. As we've transition from one CMS to another, there's been a need for create 301 redirects using our ht access file.
I'm not a technical SEO person, but concerned that the size of our ht access file might be contributing source for long page download times.
Can large ht access files cause slow page load times? Or is the coding of the 301 redirect a cause for slow page downloads?
Thanks
-
It definitely can, I saw once a site that had hundreds of redirects and it was definitely slowing the site down as they had to run through all the redirects first on the server side to see where the user should be forwarded to.
-
I also have my issues dealing with the too many hats you need in the digital business
-
Yes. My brain has been in local SEO mode this week, and my first question should have been to ask about site size. If the file is huge, then it's a huge file. Huge and fast seldom go hand in hand.
-
Hi Austin,
The server needs to process the .htacess file to resolve those redirects so if there are a lot of them it would take more time, and latency will be increased. Don't you agree?
-
How many pages are you redirecting?
-
Yes, huge .htaccess files will delay your page load.
A couple of tips:
- File size: keep the number of rules to a minimum by using regular expressions.
- Execution: if it is applicable make .htaccess smarter by using the L tag to stop the process once a rule is matched.
Hope it helps!
-
The ultimate source for testing what affects page load in terms of assets is here: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
The size of the htaccess file shouldn't really affect a page's load speed. With a 301 redirect, if someone goes to the new page, I don't see why it would load more slowly. If you went to the old page, you're adding on the time of the redirect. Since hopefully the old page shouldn't be rendering anything, it should be near instant.
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
-
Can an external firewall affect rankings?
For security reasons we are now routing traffic through an external firewall cum CDN. Our server and domain IPs remain the same, but any request is routed through an external IP, which then forwards the traffic. Would our rankings be affected because of IP changes? Thanks Sam
Technical SEO | | samgold0 -
Will redirecting a logged in user from a public page to an equivalent private page (not visible to google) impact SEO?
Hi, We have public pages that can obviously be visited by our registered members. When they visit these public pages + they are logged in to our site, we want to redirect them to the equivalent (richer) page on the private site e.g. a logged in user visiting /public/contentA will be redirected to /private/contentA Note: Our /public pages are indexed by Google whereas /private pages are excluded. a) will this affect our SEO? b) if not, is 302 the best http status code to use? Cheers
Technical SEO | | bernienabo0 -
HTTPS for form pages?
I am creating a small business website for a friend in Recruitment. It’s very small and mainly just a shop window for the business. There’s no login area for the website, but there are two areas were users can enter information: General contact us form (giving email and phone number) Applying for a job (attaching a resume) The forms are using Ninja Forms – which I believe are secure in passing information. But am I missing anything? Do I need to make these pages https at all? I’m quite new to building sites from scratch. Thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | joberts0 -
How fast should a page load to get a Green light at Googles PageSpeed?
So, trying to get e big e-commerce site to work on their page loading issuses. Their question left me without an answer, so how fast should a site be, so that it will get a Green light at the Googles Page Speed test? Is there a number in seconds? Do we know that?
Technical SEO | | ziiiva1230 -
Pageing page and seo meta tag questions
Hi if i am using paging in my website there is lots of product in my website now in paging total paging is 1000 pages now what title tag i need to add for every paging page or is there any good way we can tell search engine all page or same ?
Technical SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostic indicates duplicate page content for home page?
My first SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostic report for my website indicates duplicate page content for my home page. It lists the home page URL Page Title and URL twice. How do I go about diagnosing this? Is the problem related to the following code that is in my .htaccess file? (The purpose of the code was to redirect any non "www" backlink referrals to the "www" version of the domain.) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^whatever.com [NC]
Technical SEO | | Linesides
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.whatever.com/$1 [L,R=301] Should I get rid of the "http" reference in the second line? Related to this is a notice in the "Crawl Notices Found" -- "301 Permanent redirect" which shows my home page title as "http://whatever.com" and shows the redirect address as http://http://www.whatever.com/ I'm guessing this problem is again related to the redirect code I'm using. Also... The report indicates duplicate content for those links that have different parameters added to the URL i.e. http://www.whatever.com?marker=Blah Blah&markerzoom=13 If I set up a canonical reference for the page, will this fix this? Thank you.0 -
How new Instant Pages Affect Analytics?
I am sure everyone around here is aware of Instant Pages that Google introduced at Inside Search Event. How does it affect Analytics? Since the page is pre-loading, does that get recorded as a visitor? If the user doesn’t click on the link, will that impact the bounce rate?
Technical SEO | | IM_Learner1 -
Dynamically-generated .PDF files, instead of normal pages, indexed by and ranking in Google
Hi, I come across a tough problem. I am working on an online-store website which contains the functionlaity of viewing products details in .PDF format (by the way, the website is built on Joomla CMS), now when I search my site's name in Google, the SERP simply displays my .PDF files in the first couple positions (shown in normal .PDF files format: [PDF]...)and I cannot find the normal pages there on SERP #1 unless I search the full site domain in Google. I really don't want this! Would you please tell me how to figure the problem out and solve it. I can actually remove the corresponding component (Virtuemart) that are in charge of generating the .PDF files. Now I am trying to redirect all the .PDF pages ranking in Google to a 404 page and remove the functionality, I plan to regenerate a sitemap of my site and submit it to Google, will it be working for me? I really appreciate that if you could help solve this problem. Thanks very much. Sincerely SEOmoz Pro Member
Technical SEO | | fugu0