301 redirect recommendations
-
One of our clients we are working on have two sites the main with a PR5 and a separate one with a PR4.
We are planning on doing a 301 from the PR4 to a page on the PR5
Is it best to do:
www.PR4.com ----> www.PR5.com/releveantPR4page
or
www.PR4.com/page ----> www.PR5.com/releveantPR4page
Most pages on the PR4 site can fit into one PR5 page logically. However the PR4 has an about us, contact us, blog/with posts, FAQ, Applications, Legal Resources which are all pretty out dated..
The PR4 site is kinda messy and we are not sure if it will be easy to 301 each page individually with the user in mind.
can we do a sitewide 301 redirect from the root PR4.com to a page PR/5.com/releveantPR4page and also do deeper 301's? PR4.com/PR4page ---> PR5.com/releveantPR4page
-
Both Lance and CleverPhD have some good points. Really go page by page and map out the entire domain. Both on the PR4 and PR5 sites. Create excel spreadsheets to align up the location and destination of your 301 redirects.
Then, calculate the # of pages you have listed on the PR4 site that need redirecting but really don't have a home. IF the number is small enough, just redirect those pages/URL's for visitors to the homepage. Google doesn't like mass 301 redirects to the homepage, but if those pages have small inbound links, and some value - that will get pushed back to the main index URL.
You could also let it 404 as CleverPhD said, but what I would map out, is a kick-ass 404 redirect page. Include elements like a search function for people to look for new content, add a link to a form that people can fill out to advise of the 404 error. Offer up alternatives and/or pages-URL's that might offer something similar. Have fun with it and add some creativity to help convert those almost lost users to possibly visitors and then clients. Don't just let the 404 page be the end all of the site visit. I have found by really focusing on 404 error page improvements, you can improve both the bounce and exit rates of said pages, and as a result retain users that become clients in the end - all because you were able to take the time to build something that caught their attention, and thus - kept them inside the site Some great examples of creative 404 errors might include this or some creatively funny ones like that. This is another one I liked here.
Hope some of that helps Cheers!
-
I would consider the ROI of the redirect. If a specific page flows a bunch of link juice and on terms important to the business then redirect to the best page. After a point, the rest won't return enough value for your client to be charged at your hourly rate.
-
You want to go page to page (your second example) as much as possible. Google prefers more of a one to one vs a many to one relationship with 301 redirects. That said, if you have a bunch of garbage pages with garbage links with not much traffic to them, you may just want to let them 404 and die out of the index. Take some time looking at your Analytics and you may find you can just drop those pages.
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
-
301 Redirect from Authoritative but Loosely-Related Domain
We acquired a health-related blog about a year ago with good domain authority and a pretty strong link profile (TF ~40). We have been publishing good relevant content in it but it's not really paying dividends and we are considering doing a 301 to our money site, which is focused primarily on senior issues but has a lot of health-related content. The question is - with the two domains only being loosely related in subject matter, do we stand to harm our main site by redirecting from the other domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sa_787040 -
Writing on the web, what is recommended
Hello, I was wondering what is best in term of SEO when writing on the web. Between those 2 sentences for example what is best to use 1)You are going to ride your bicycle to the town of Obernai. Today, your bicycle ride takes you to Obernai.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
PushState for redirects
Is it possible to use PushState for redirects from one site to another?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rgamedia_seo0 -
301 redirect to search results page?
Hi - we just launched our redesigned website. On the previous site, we had multiple .html pages that contained links to supporting pdf documentation. On this new site, we no longer have those .html landing pages containing the links. The question came up, should we do a search on our site to gather a single link that contains all pdf links from the previous site, and set up a redirect? It's my understanding that you wouldn't want google to index a search results page on your website. Example: old site had the link http://www.oldsite.com/technical-documents.html new site, to see those same links would be like: http://www.newsite.com/resources/search?View+Results=&f[]=categories%3A196
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
Redirecting to Modal URLs
Hi everyone! Long time no chat - hope you're all well! I have a question that for some reason is causing me some trouble. I have a client that is creating a new website, the process was a mess and I am doing a last minute redirect file for them (long story, for another time). They have different teams for different business categories, so there are multiple staff pages with a list of staffers, and a link to their individual pages. Currently they have a structure like this for their staff bios... www.example.com/category-staff/bob-johnson/ But now, to access the staffers bio, a modal pops up. For instance... www.example.com/category-staff/#bob-johnson Should I redirect current staffers URLs to the staff category, or the modal URL? Unfortunately, we are late in the game and this is the way the bio pages are set up. Would love thoughts, thanks so much guys!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PatrickDelehanty0 -
Recommended SEO Companies
Looking for advice here.... We are a small business looking to secure/increase rankings in the search engines. What are some recommended SEO agencies/companies that are effective with today's search engine optimization standards. _ Thank you_
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise0 -
Is a 301 Redirect and a Canonical Tag on Uppercase to Lowercase Pages Correct?
We have a medium size site that lost more than 50% of its traffic in July 2013 just before the Panda rollout. After working with a SEO agency, we were advised to clean up various items, one of them being that the 10k+ urls were all mixed case (i.e. www.example.com/Blue-Widget). A 301 redirect was set up thereafter forcing all these urls to go to a lowercase version (i.e. www.example.com/blue-widget). In addition, there was a canonical tag placed on all of these pages in case any parameters or other characters were incorporated into a url. I thought this was a good set up, but when running a SEO audit through a third party tool, it shows me the massive amount of 301 redirects. And, now I wonder if there should only be a canonical without the redirect or if its okay to have tens of thousands 301 redirects on the site. We have not recovered yet from the traffic loss yet and we are wondering if its really more of a technical problem than a Google penalty. Guidance and advise from those experienced in the industry is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK7170 -
Rel canonical or redirect
Hi, my client has the following links pointing to the home page http://www.weddingrings.com/index.cfm http://www.weddingrings.com In this case would I use rel canonical or redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alexkatalkin0