Maintaining Link Value Of Old URLS With 301 Redirects
-
Large ecommerce site that has been around for a long time (15+ years.) During that time technology has changed a lot and we are running into issues maintaining 301 redirects for very old urls. For example we have a good amount of links to product and category pages. Some of the old links are to products that still exist and will exist for many years to come.(of note little to no traffic comes via these links. Most of them are close to 9 years old so they are buried deep within articles, forums, or websites) However as we make changes to the site and URL structure these old urls are taking up more resources to continue to maintain 301 redirects. I am Leary of no longer supporting them because I do not want it to impact rankings however there is concern on how much development time and technology resources it takes to continue to support as time goes on.
Does anyone have experience handling redirects 3 or 4 url structures old? Looking for insight from someone who has crossed this bridge before.
-
We have changed the URLS a few times over the past decade. It is just maintaining some of the super old backlinks to category and product pages that are getting harder to maintain.
I appreciate you taking the time to answer.
-
Okay, got it. To figure out how much value you're getting from that traffic, you need to figure out what you want customers to do once they hit those pages. If the customers do the thing you want them to do (buy, lead gen, consume more content, etc), then you still want to keep those redirects. If they don't, you can probably kill them without any repercussions to the brand/site. You can also reach out to those sites that are hosting your old links and ask them to put in new, more relevant links, if those links are still valuable in that the traffic from that link drives customers to do the action you want them to do.
I also wanted to add something that, I know you may fully realize, but no one has said yet, for every page that you're 301'ing to the new structure, you can take that old page and those old assets off your server. All you need is the 301 redirect code.
-
So you have old URLs; have they been changed already?
I'm assuming not since you're getting great traffic from organic. If that's the case, why change them? There appears to be no problem unless I'm missing something (assuming you haven't changed the URL).
This may be a question for developers that have more knowledge.
Thanks!
-
Erica,
Thank you so much for the response. To clarify so that i understand your recommendation correctly. The pages do still get traffic, some get a lot of traffic from organic search. They just do not get a lot of referral traffic from other websites. For example I have a lot of cases where a customer links to one of our products in a tutorial they did on their website. Because the tutorial is old the link to us is from many years ago and the url has a super old url structure. And maintaining the system that helps figure out where that old url should point to on our site is causing the problem. Because it is hard to know how to judge how much value is coming from that link from an SEO perspective I am having a hard time determining if we should continue to maintain these very old urls linking to us from external domains.
Does that help clarify?
-
If you don't get any traffic to these very old pages, there's really no reason to keep the redirects. When we rebranded from SEOmoz.org to Moz.com, we killed a lot of very old pages that didn't get any traffic anymore. We didn't redirect them, just tossed them away. We only redirected out-dated pages that were still getting traffic.
-
Cole,
First thanks for the response.
I probably should have added a bit more detail for clarification. The simple 301 redirect example.com/product-a-123-xyz.html is 301 redirected to example.com/product-a can be handled easily.
However because some of the Old urls had dynamic aspects to them our system has to run code to handle the redirect logic so that the 301 redirect takes sends them the to correct place. For example we sell tires for motorcycles. Because of old technology the url 10 years ago included vehicle specific elements like the year, model brand. Right now we have redirect logic that recognizes that the link is coming in from an old dynamic url and 301 redirect the customer to that specific tire on our site. Then at the product level they can then choose which vehicle they have, all dynamic aspects are taken care of now with ajax. But maintaining that old logic is eating up resources and I am debating if it is worth doing so.
-
Let me make sure I understand your question. You have migrated several (old) URLs into one (new) URL.
I would simply 301 redirect any old URL to a new URL that relates. For example, example.com/product-a-123-xyz.html is 301 redirected to example.com/product-a
You don't have to worry about what articles, bookmarks, etc. have the wrong URL because they are now redirected to the correct URL to maintain link value.
Do not 301 redirect page A to Page B that does not relate.
If you have any other 404s that come up via GWT or Moz and you have a relevant page for that 404, then go ahead and place a 301 redirect in. I would monitor this weekly (every Monday for example). It shouldn't be more than 20-30 to go through at most and that way you continue monitoring link value.
Does this answer your question? I hope this helps.
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 Question
I am working with a website and I ran a Screaming Frog and noticed there are 4,600 301's on the website (www.srishoes.com). It seems like the issue is between the www. and without it and they aren't working together. Is this something that the website provider should update and what type of impact might this have on the site? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ReunionMarketing
Matt0 -
Can You 301 Unwanted Links to Another Site?
I am trying to clean up my link profile, and have noticed that a I have a lot of crappy inbound links linking to some of my old pages. And those old pages have since been 301'ed to current pages. My question is, is it worth trying to 301 those old pages, and thus those crappy links, to another website? Would this do anything to clean up my link profile?
Technical SEO | | red6marketing0 -
Redirecting broken incoming links
I have a number of 404s happening on my site due to other websites incorrectly linking to my content. Perhaps they typed the word wrong, or their software did. Here are some examples from webmaster tools: learn/ingredie.. shop/accessories_and_extras/professional.. lore/idx.php.. learn/step_by_step_instruc shop/prod shop/product lore/email_ As you can see, none of those are actual pages - but truncated URLs of actual pages. Should I find a way to redirect these pages - or let them 404? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | dreadmichael0 -
301 Redirect & re-use
I have an old site which is being moved to a new tld due to re-branding. I understand I would do a series of 301 redirects from the pages of the old site to capture the authority and move to the new site. However, at some point in the future (probably 1-2 years) we may want to re-use the old site again for a different brand (it has a good brand, just not for what we're going after). Question is - can a redirected site be re-used at some point in the future? And if so, which site would new authority (links, etc.) go to?
Technical SEO | | uwaim20120 -
Does CSS position effect the value of a link?
For example, take a look at http://www.dueds.com and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. See the link in the bottom left? Does the fact that it is pushed all the way down to the bottom make the link worth less than if it was directly under the social media buttons?
Technical SEO | | adriandg0 -
Difference between URL Rewrites and 301 Redirects for Rankings
What is the difference between URL rewriting and 301 redirects? Specifically if my home page is rewriting the www. version and the /index.html version rather than 301 redirecting them is this equivalent? Does it still pass the link juice on those alternate variations the same way a 301 redirect will?
Technical SEO | | rcarll0 -
Should I 301 redirect my country specific sites, or use them as linking root domains?
I have loveelectronics.co.uk, but I also own 10 other country code specific domains. I am short on links (i'm actually still setting up the website) and wondered that until i have country specific content, should I 301 redirect these websites to the homepage of my main site, or could I use them as links which would mean I have more linking root domains? Sorry if this is a beginner question, but it would be good to know so I can sort this.
Technical SEO | | jcarter0 -
301 Redirect?
Sometimes I want to redirect pages on my site. Like a search result: http://www.inthelighturns.com/memorials/catalogsearch/result/?q=hearts to a page designed for what they're searching for: http://www.inthelighturns.com/hearts.html There's no real worry about transferring page rank and this may not be a permanent redirect. Just a "I want this page to show this page for some time" kind of redirect. What's the best solution? Thanks Tyler
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0