Can you 301 redirect to a page that has other pages 301 to it?

[AllIsWell]

Two years ago updated url page to include better keywords and used a 301 redirect from the old page to the new.

so www.example.com/keyword-1st-generation.html now points to ...

www.example.com/keyword-2nd-generation.html

That moved the pages up in ranking, but now have better kw for the url,

so is it okay to redirect the /keyword-2nd-geration-html to

www.example.com/keyword-3rd-generation.html

And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url?

It's been 3 years and there is no chance of using it again. Plus, no sign of it in analytics.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

There's always a risk anytime you migrate any URL. Generally we advise that unless you have a good reason, it's usually better in the long run to leave your URLs as they are. That said, there are many circumstances that warrant it.

Most of the time, changing the URL to get a better keyword in the URL won't give you much of a boost, although it might help with click-through rates. Keep the following in mind:

• A "normal" 301 is expected to pass about 80% of it's original link juice
• Google and other search engines are fine at following a single 301 redirect, but a trail of multiple 301's strung together starts to get dicey.
• Each new 301 redirect in the chain further degrades link juice.

Q. And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url?

If I understand correctly, you want to know when to remove the 301 from the 1st URL? If there are links still pointed at the original, then it's wise to keep the 301 in place indefinitely, to keep your link juice flowing. That said, if there is a 301 on there now, it wouldn't show in analytics anyway, so if I am mis-understanding the question, please let me know.

Hope this helps!

[AllIsWell]

Appreciate everyone's input. What can I say, I see the light after reading the responses.

Since the pages are optimized without changing the URLs, I won't be needing the redirect. But only understand that from the advice received.

[wickedsunny1]

Why change urls over and over again, keep both do different keywords testing liek A/B testing.

if you want to change even though. why not put 301 to 1st and 2nd generation towards 3rd? so both redirects at 3rd now as it will be your live one right?

[BlueprintMarketing]

Sean is correct and I'm glad you mentioned this because I left it out according to your examples if you're really trying to change your URL for a keyword over and over again instead of building new pages it simply is not going to work well for you if you want to rank in Google. Landing pages can come and go sometimes but you want to make a website that keeps its pages if one is not performing well the only reason to cut it would be link juice however you would only truly want to do this after examining a lot of information from Google analytics and then after that most likely rewording the page instead of cutting it to A/B testing make the page work because the older the link the better just like domains

[Sean_Dawes]

Yes you can 301 a page that has 301s. Just do not want to cause a 301 redirect loop. But the more important question here is why you keep changing urls based solely on keywords. You hint at it above.  You do not need to keep changing your url over and over based on whatever the head term is.  That is silly and if you think how google would want, this does not make sense. But that's just my two cents.

[BlueprintMarketing]

it would be easier to answer if you posted your URL. However if you are using example.com as your URL and it is never changing yes you can easily through 301 redirect one page into another without any issue.

Sincerely,

Tom