How many redirects are too many?
-
Hello Everyone,
I currently have a dynamic site and it is my understanding that switching to a static site would be beneficial.
I already have some 301's in place from when my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc. Is it okay to re redirect them? How many redirects are too many?
Thank you in advance for suggestions. Have a Fabulous Friday!
Sandra
-
I agree with Richard, based on your explanation, this is the proper way to do the 301 redirects. Your plan will work just fine.
GWT is Google Webmaster Tools
-
Based on your clarification above about the redirects, you are okay leaving it as is, as long as everything is redirecting properly. It would still be best practice to change the redirects from page 1 > page 3 and page 2 > page 3, so all old redirects point to their newer counterparts.
-
Thank you - that helps!
Sincerely,
Sandra
-
Hi Richard,
Can you elaborate? I don't know what you mean.
Thank you,
Sandra
-
Hi Monica,
What is my GWT? (I'm not a developer.)
With regards to the redirects, I am referring to Page 1 redirecting to Page 2 then redirecting to Page 3.
Story,
Site was first BASIC static, which was great. Then I was told upgrade it., so I upgraded to somewhat dynamic. (so now Page 1 now redirecting to New Page 1).
Then told, site needs to be upgraded again - guess what, this changes my extension again - wasn't told that was going to happen. So now I need to have old Page 1 redirecting to New Page 1, now re-redirect to newer Page 1 - because these two pages previous pages are indexed and getting a little link juice. NOW, I realize I should have stayed static and never gone dynamic; however, with switching back to static, it won't be the same extension as the first static site Hence, Page 1 now redirecting to New Page 1 to Newer Page and Re Re Redirecting to newest Page 1 because all of the above pages are indexed.
Do I just say FORGET IT, and scratch it all and let me get indexed as site gets crawled, because with all the 'updates' and 'upgrades' I supposedly needed (which I now know I didn't) all of my pages have fallen off of Google Page 1 and I'm lucky with anything is even on Page 2 or 3.
THANK YOU Again!!
-
Hi,
I am quoting you
"I currently have a dynamic site and it is my understanding that switching to a static site would be beneficial. "
My answer would be you can do url rewriting because our purpose to be have static URL e.g example.com/blue-widget not example.com&blue?widget
"I already have some 301's in place from when my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc"
I would not suggest that first of all I don't understand why do you want to redirect from.php to extension with parameters.
How many redirects are too many?
There is no limit but if you are doing chain redirect 2-3 max would be fine not more that that. To more info please watch Matt cutts video on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lVPrYoBkA#t=198
Thanks
-
It would be best practice to update the old redirects to the new structure as well.
-
Agree with Monica with a clarification. You shouldn't REmove the the 301 redirects after 6 months if there are incoming links to the old / dynamic URLs UNLESS you've been in touch with link owners and they have agreed to change the link to point to the new permanent URL.
And as Monica states, it's always a good idea to keep your eye on your GWT for 404 errors for any you may have missed.
-
It depends on how the redirects are done. If you do them in the htaccess file and they are dynamic, not manual, you can have thousands. What Kevin is referring to is how many times can you redirect the same page. You can't redirect page 1 to page 2 to page 3 to page 4 then to page 5. But you can redirect multiple pages on you site.
I understand from your previous post you are talking about your blog. You will be fine redirecting these URLs to static URLs. Do them through the HTAccess file. After about 6 months the old URLs should have fallen off and been removed from the index so you can move the 301 redirects. If anything gets missed you will find it in your GWT 404 errors.
-
A couple will be fine. Anything more than that may be problematic. In 2011, Matt Cutts stated anything more than five and Googlebot will not follow it.
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
-
Multistore 302 Redirects
I noticed that every link on my site is being flagged up as a 302 temp redirect in Moz. The reason is because we have a multi store and use GeoIP to redirect anyone coming from their respective country. I'm guessing a 302 is the wrong way to do this - can anyone shed advice on the best practice for redirecting customers to geo-specific stores?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Best practice to redirect http to https
I have an SSL certificate on our domain but at times some search results still list the HTTP version. Clicking on this then warns the user about security and they leave. To avoid this I am using this in the htaccess file to redirect all HTTP visits to the https version. RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavpeds
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://domain.com/$1 [R,L] Is this ok? I notice on Moz toolbar it give a 302 temporary redirect I am thinking this isn't good and needs to be a 301 maybe? What is the best practice in this situation?1 -
Preserve domain on 301 redirect?
We have a domain solely used for print advertising that does a 301 redirect to a landing page (a department home page) on our "real" domain that is indexed on Google. Example: www.bmwrepairs.com redirects to www.repairshop.com/bmwrepairs. Is there a way to do a 301 redirect so that when they get redirected, the URL in the browser address bar remains www.bmwrepairs.com?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jazee1 -
Too many backlinks from one domain?
I've been in the process of creating a tourism-based website for the state of Kansas. I'm a photographer for the state, and have inked a nice little side income to my day job as a web designer by selling prints from Kansas (along with my travels elsewhere). I'm still in the process of developing it, but it's at least at a point that I need to really start thinking about SEO factor of the amount of backlinks I have from it going back to my main photography website. The Kansas site is at http://www.kansasisbeautiful.com and my photography website is http://www.mickeyshannon.com. This tourism website will serve a number of purposes: To promote the state and show people it's not just a flat, boring place. To help promote my photography. The entire site is powered by my photography. To sell a book I'm planning to publish later this year/early next year of Kansas images. To help increase sales of photography prints of my work. What I'm worried about is the amount of backlinks I have going from the Kansas site to my photography site. Not to mention every image is hosted on my photography domain (no need to upload to two domains when one can serve the same purpose). I'm currently linking back to my site on most pages via a little "Like the Photos? Buy a print" link in the top right corner. In addition, when users get to the website map, all photo listings click back to a page on my photography site that they can purchase prints. And the main navigation also has a link for "Photos" that takes them to my Kansas photo galleries on my photography website as well. The question I have: Is it really bad SEO-wise to have anywhere from 1 to 10+ backlinks on every page from one domain (kansasisbeautiful.com) linking back to mickeyshannon.com? Would I be better served moving all of the content from kansasisbeautiful into a subdirectory on my photography site (mickeyshannon.com/kansas/) and redirecting the entire domain there? I haven't actually launched this website yet, so I'm trying to make the right call before pushing it to the public. Any advice would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | msphoto0 -
If you do 302 redirect then change to 301 redirect do you lose all link juice?
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with understanding the following story: A website has been moved from its HTTP version to a HTTPS version. The SEO manager has advised developers that they needed to do 301 redirects. However, in the end, 302 redirects have been put in place instead. Now, 301s should be put in place ASAP. The million dollar question is: has the website lost all of its link juice already given the nature of the redirects? Also, does it depend on whether Google has indexed the new 302 pages or does it depend on something else? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingGH0 -
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
Redirection not working
http://elmanarah.com/ to http://www.elmanarah.com/ I have mistakenly created 5 databases for one wordpress installation.In order to get rid of them I mistakenly even deleted the right one.Now created the new one but the URL is showing with www Even now if It type in http://elmanarah.com/ it sends me to http://www.elmanarah.com/ I also check in URL D.A and P.A in OSE it shows like I have redirected it fine.Can anyone Check in and guide me either I have done it right and It pass on my previous work effort or it was total loss for me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
New Site Structure and 404s. Should I redirect everything?
Hi fellow Mozzers, I've recently re-released a site and also took the opportunity to change/clean up the URL structure. As a result of this Google is starting to report many 404s such as below; blog/tag/get-fit/ blog/tag/top-presents/ Most of these 404 errors are from tag or category pages which simply don't exist any more (because they were unnecessary, crap or irrelevant). Although there's also a few posts I've removed. My question is whether it's worth redirecting all these tags and pages to the root directory of the site's new blog (as there isn't really a new page which is similar or appropriate) or just to leave them as 404 errors. Bearing in mind; They don't really rank for anything There's little if any links pointing to these pages Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0