Deleting Website Section, Preserve Links with 301?
-
HI Mozers!
I have a client who is deleting their community section of their website because they have little activity. I know there are some inbound links going the the community section.
If I 301 redirect those links to the homepage instead, will that still preserve the SEO credit of the link -OR-is Google smart enough to know it's redirecting the the homepage and kill the link love?
My initial thoughts are that Google will see that it's being redirected to the homepage and not count the link anymore, but I'm just guessing. Any ideas? Anyone have any experience in something like this?
-
Hi,
Usually when you redirect to the homepage, Google will still allow it and you get the link juice. By as a best practice, that is kind of a waste because that is not where the visitors want to visit. If the visitor wants to visit website A's topic A page, the best practice is to redirect the visitor to website B's topic A page so the visitor is still viewing what they wanted in the first place.
To answer your question, you still still get the link juice redirecting to homepage but your bounce rate might increase because that is not the page where visitors were expecting to visit.
However, I have a question, if you are closing down the community section then how are you redirecting? I am a bit confused/lost on this part.
-
Bulk redirects to the homepage are usually not the best thing (especially if there is relevant content elsewhere on your site). Its very possible they eventually won't pass the same level of link equity as before. Have you tried instead driving more traffic to your community page in an attempt to grow the community? Perhaps via social media or blogging?
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
-
Any Website SEO Benefits from SAAS Linked Content?
An installed software application has a help section for users, and that help content is housed on the software company website. Would the links from the software application to the company website benefit the websites SEO efforts? Or, would no referring URL mean no SEO value?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sysprousa1
Thanks!0 -
Relaunching website in two phases - 301 redirect approach
Hey Mozzers, Interested to know your thoughts on the following situation. I am relaunching a website with an updated URL structure in TWO phases. Phase one will be a much smaller version of the site, with 30% of the pages going live - the remaining 70% of page won't be available until Phase two. In Phase one, these 30% of pages will be 301 redirected from their like-for-like versions - old site to new site. The remaining 70%... because the like-for-like pages won't be available until Phase two, which is likely to be launched in 3 months time, should I do a temporary redirect on these pages (302) to the new homepage for the time being, until the new versions of the pages are live - and then implement the 301 from old url to new url. A bit of a messy situation, and not ideal for SEO, but my hands are tied as the organisation is pushing ahead with this phased approach. So, interested to hear your thoughts on an appropriate 301 migration plan.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWesley0 -
HTTPS website migration and internal links
Hey Moz! I read Moz's guide on migrating websites from http to https, and it seems changing all relative internal links to absolute https is recommended (we currently use relative internal links). But is doing this absolutely necessary if we will already have a redirect in our .htaccess file forcing all http pages to https? Changing all of our internal links to absolute https will be very time consuming, and I'd like to hear your thoughts as to whether it's absolutely recommended/necessary; and if so, why? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
Subdomain Metrics Links??
I have been analysing my companies website against our competitors and we beat them hands down on everything apart from the total links in the subdomain metrics. Our competitor jumped above us a couple of months ago to grab the number one spot for our industries most valuable keyword. They have had a new website designed and after looking at the source code and running it through SEO MOZ in comparison to our site I can't see how they have manged to do it. We beat them hands down on all factors apart from subdomain metrics > Total links where they have twice as many. When it comes to Page Specific Metrics and Root Domain Metrics we easily beat them on all factors. Does anyone have any ideas what I need to do to improve the subdomain metrics? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Detectamet0 -
Will changing website subject affect the value of excisting links?
What will happen with the value of links when a website subject is changing? Will all value be lost or will it keep certain value? There will be a new subject, new pages, new structure...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xicero0 -
Are there any negatives to channeling my links through a 301 redirect?
I'm channeling 1000's of links through another url with a 301 redirect. I've thought this through and can't see any downside to doing this, but I want to get your opinion. Can you see any downside to doing this? With regards to passing anchor text, PR, PA, etc? Since this is done with sites all the time when they change urls, I can't see Google being able to penalize me for this....can you? What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brian-M0 -
301 Redirect To Corresponding Link No Matter The URL?
Hey guys I have hosting on Host Gator with I believe an apache web server. I need a code to put in the HT ACCESS to redirect all WWW URL's to their corresponding http URL. I haven't been able to get a code to work. For example, http://www.mysite.org/page1.html -> http://mysite.org/page1.html , without having to redirect hundreds of pages individually Here is the format my server uses in the HT ACCESS file for 301 redirects. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.org$ [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mysite.org
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DustinX
$RewriteRule ^Electric-Pressure-Cookers.html$ "http://mysite.org/Pressure-Cookers.html" [R=301,L] Thanks0 -
Redirecting my new Website URL to my old Website URL
Hi! OK, I am semi - new to SEO Moz but have been self-teaching for 3 years. However I am stuck.. I have been operating my e-commerce site from www.shopadornonline.com for the past 3 years. I just purchased www.shopadorn.com Right now Shopadorn.com re-directs to www.shopadornonline.com because all my products and links go to shopadornonline.com/productblahblahblah I guess I am stuck. Not sure what to tell my web designer to do? Do I give up on having shopadorn.com OR do I start re-directing customers and doing 301 re-directs? I think from what i have read that it is bad to have traffic going to both shopadorn and shopadornonline as they compete for rankings? Where should I start?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shopadorn0