Too many 301 redirects to home page - is this possible?
-
If a site has a bunch of 404’s that are basically old URL’s that no longer work and point to pages or documents that don’t exist anymore - Can someone clarify if it’s a problem when fixing a bunch of these 404’s to point them all to the home page?
so if there is not really anywhere else that is applicable for the old broken URL, is it really a problem to 301 old pages to the site home page?
I have read some different things on this recently on some different sites, so I just wondered what the latest thinking on this was….thanks...
-
The answer is NO, there is no inherent risk of ranking loss or credibility loss when redirecting old URL's. Think of it like the post office, lets say you move a lot and as a result you have become very familiar with their change of address form. The post office isn't going to delay the delivery of your mail just because your Dads in the military or your Mom keeps moving to escape old flames. Relocating is a part of life and when it comes down to it the Post Office and Google, for that matter, thank you for 301'ing your mail so it doesn't stack up and clutter the Index with undeliverables.
-
Found it! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use Check out the section "Redirecting all pages in one go to a single URL" "Although the intention may not be manipulative, there have been cases of people doing this to try and consolidate all the link juice from loads of pages into one page, to make that page stronger. This can sometimes put up a flag to Google who may come and take a closer look at whats going on." This post does also come with a Matt Cutts video discussing this. Hope that helps!
-
I swear I read in a recent post that Google frowns on large redirect to your homepage... Am I crazy??? I tried to find where I read this but can't remember. Anyone? Bueler?
-
No not at all. I do this for all old product that have fallen off. I redirect them back to their category page (not the home page).
I would however, not try to do this in the htaccess file, but within the head of php page. This automates the process and keeps you from having to manually change the htaccess file often and gives you a way to evaluate the URL to determine the best place to redirect to.
I hope that helps.
-
I took over a website once and we redid it. The content was old and stale, a review site of products years old. We did a new url structure and new content, but we didn't redo the content of the old reviews. There were hundreds of URLs that got redirected to the home page. I pretty much took the entire old url structure and sent that whole directory to the home page. I only pulled out a few that had new counterparts. Hasn't harmed us, top 5 ranking. I wouldn't worry about it. Google hates it when you get lots of 301s from other domains, as in you bought up a bunch of old expired ones and redirected all their urls to your home page. That would be a bad idea. Internal links I don't think matter at all from an seo perspective.
-
Hmmm, hard to say exactly but maybe if we look at the http status codes and their meanings it may help you to make a more informed decision.
The status codes are detailed in full here:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.htmlIn brief, they are as follows:
301 - the requested resource has moved permanently
404 - the requested resource is unavailable
410 - the requested resource has gone
So really, just use common sense. If the pages have an alternative then 301 the missing page to it's closest alternative. If the pages have no alternative and they get many requests then, they should have an alternative so create one, or, link it to the homepage - maybe. If the pages have lots of inbound links and have no replacement, create one, or 301 them to the homepage.
Generally, if the page has no real alternative, does little traffic and has no links then allow it to 404 but use a good custom 404 page to help signpost them on their way.
You also have the 410 gone code but in practice, I have never seen anyone use that so a combination of 301 & 404 pages with a liberal sprinkling of common sense is the best approach.
Some great resources here:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/http-status-codes
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-404-pages-always-bad-for-seo
Hope it helps
Marcus
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
-
Many of my pages are showing up as 4xx errors because they require a login/subscription to view. How can I fix this?
Should these pages be redirecting to a login page? Or does there need to be something other than an Access Denied message? I feel like these are bringing the overall site score down.
On-Page Optimization | | CaraMc0 -
Page grader says we are keyword stuffing but we arn't. Page source shows different story.
Hi community! We have just run a page grader for the keyword 'LED Bulbs' on whichledlight.com and it comes up that we are keyword stuffing! However, a brief look at the source for the homepage and there's only 6 times that LED Bulbs pops up. We do have the non plural version of the word 'LED Bulb' on the page 27 times.. do we think that would contribute to the keyword stuffing? Thanks!!
On-Page Optimization | | TrueluxGroup0 -
Page Speed
Google recommends a page load speed of 1.4 seconds, is it recommended to have that page speed for every page on the site, or just the landing pages. Is there a tool that will check the load speed of every page on a site and report the slow pages? The free online tools only check one page at a time.
On-Page Optimization | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
How to rank well on 2 keywords - 2 separate pages or 1 combined page
Hi, I have a website about allergy. We ar developing new content, and through keyword research I have discovered that "dog allergy" and "cat allergy" are both very common searches. However, the cause, and symtoms are very alike for these 2 types of allergy so it would make sense to combine the two allergies on one page. So my question is: What do I choose to increase my chances to ranke the best I can for both "cat allergy", and "dog allergy"? Should I develop 2 separate pages for cat & dog allergy or should I do a combined page? (We would of course review the texts so no duplicate content/text would be used if we chose to have 2 pages) I would be so greatful for your advice!! Kind regards, Jeanette
On-Page Optimization | | Mylan-GDM0 -
Home page keyword effecting internal page ranking
Hello, My client has a second keyword for the home page that is competitive. The home page is not being ranked for this keyword. Instead, an internal category page is ranking. This internal category page is more relevant than the home page - it shows the categories for the actual products that this term refers to. But everyone around us in Google's page results has far more backlinks than the internal page, and we're all heavily optimized for this term. My question is, is it safe to pull the second term off of the home page or is this internal page strong because it is somehow being strengthened by the home page optimization?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Why do I suddenly have so many more page errors?
I've been working diligently to remove page errors that appear after each scan of my website. I was down to 3 or 4 errors after the last crawl, now this week I'm getting 80 plus. I haven't changed anything since last week (page titles, etc.) so what's up?
On-Page Optimization | | janettapp0 -
301 internal redirects
Hello, I have a lot of low quality pages on my site, many of which have very similar URLs and cover similar topics. I want to tidy up my site by using 301 redirects as Rand suggests here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization 1. As a rough rule of thumb, how many internal 301 redirects is too many? 2. Can lots be to the homepage if they're relevant? (I could have as many as 30) Thanks, Kevin
On-Page Optimization | | KMack0 -
SEO Value of Within-Page Links vs. Separate Pages
Title says it all. Assuming that you're talking about similar content (let's say, widgets), which is better: using within-page links for variations or using separate pages? I.e., do we have a widget page and then do in-page links to describe green, blue, and red widgets, or separate pages for each type of widget? In-page pro: more content on a single page, thus more keywords, key phrases, and general appearance of real content. In-page con: Jakob Neilsen says they're confusing. Also, for SEO, you only get one page title, rather than a separate page title for each. My personal bias is for in-page, since I hate creating dozens of short pages for what could be on one page, but my suspicion is that separate pages are better for SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | maxkennerly0