During a site platform transition, should we 301 redirect all URLs or only those with inbound links?
-
We have an ecommerce client transitioning to a new platform. Due to the nature of the platform, all the pages will have different URLs. There are between 7000-8000 total pages on the website.
We wrote 301 redirects for all URLs which are showing inbound links. Unfortunately, automating this process is pretty difficult and hand writing URLs for 8000 links is unfeasible. Is it worth investing the time to 301 redirect all 8000 URLs, or are we safe with only doing those with inbound links?
One other option would be to implement a generic redirect for all the rest of the old URLs that sends them to the homepage. Would this be a good compromise?
-
A thought to consider is you may have links that you are not seeing. There are also bookmarks users may have along with e-mails which can offer a link to each page.
Every product page represents potential sales. If a user who does follow a bookmark or link finds the page they expect, there is a much higher likelihood they may make a purchase on their next visit. If users are dumped on the home page they may close the browser window. Think about how you would react if a friend sent you a "hey, look at this great product" e-mail link and you found yourself on the home page of a company with 8000 products.
It comes down to what type of company you are and how you wish to balance costs versus service. Is this a one person company who lists 8000 products and dropships orders from various suppliers? Or are you a large company with a warehouse which carries thousands of products and has a large staff. In the latter case, I would ensure all the pages are properly redirected.
Keep in mind your redirects don't necessarily mean 8000 lines of individual code. Depending on your old and new URL structure, it is possible your entire site can be redirected with a single regex expression, or a relatively few of them.
-
This one depends on the resources spent vs. the gain you'll get (like almost anything in SEO by the way).Because you've mentioned that redirecting the 8000 URLs should be done manually, I would advice against that considering the small gain you're likely to get from 'URLs that arent showing backlinks in any tools but appear to have had them after all'.
Based on the info we have I would suggest to go for the one you've suggested last: a generic redirect for all the 'left over' URLs as that seems like the best balance between resources invested and gains received.
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
-
My site was hacked and spammy URLs were injected that pointed out. The issue was fixed, but GWT is still reporting more of these links.
Excuse me for posting this here, I wasn't having much luck going through GWT support. We recently moved our eCommerce site to a new server and in the process the site was hacked. Spammy URLs were injected in, all of which were pointing outwards to some spammy eCommerce retail stores. I removed ~4,000 of these links, but more continue to pile in. As you can see, there are now over 20,000 of these links. Note that our server support team does not see these links anywhere. I understand that Google doesn't generally view this as a problem. But is that true given my circumstance? I cannot imagine that 20,000 new, senseless 404's can be healthy for my website. If I can't get a good response here, would anyone know of a direct Google support email or number I can use for this issue?
Technical SEO | | jampaper0 -
Off-site company blog linking to company site or blog incorporated into the company site?
Kind of a SEO newbie, so be gentle. I'm a beginner content strategist at a small design firm. Currently, I'm working with a client on a website redesign. Their current website is a single page dud with a page authority of 5. The client has a word press blog with a solid URL name, a domain authority of 100 and page authority of 30. My question is this: would it be better for my client from an SEO perspective to: Re-skin their existing blog and link to the new company website with it, hopefully passing on some of its "Google Juice,"or... Create a new blog on their new website (and maybe do a 301 redirect from the old blog)? Or are there better options that I'm not thinking of? Thanks for whatever help you can give a newbie. I just want to take good care of my client.
Technical SEO | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Updating inbound links vs. 301 redirecting the page they link to
Hi everyone, I'm preparing myself for a website redesign and finding conflicting information about inbound links and 301 redirects. If I have a URL (we'll say website.com/website) that is linked to by outside sources, should I get those outside sources to update their links when I change the URL to website.com/webpage? Or is it just as effective from a link juice perspective to simply 301 redirect the old page to the new page? Are there any other implications to this choice that I may want to consider? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Liggins0 -
URL redirecting domains
Hi Is there anything wrong/dangerous forwarding a clutch of domains to a sub page (landing page) on a different domain ? Say Brand X buys Brand Z and wants to close down Brand Z site but have Brand Z domain fwd to a landing page (explaining the company acquisition) on Brand X site. In addition Brand Z had a few related but unused domains forwarding to Brand Z doman & now also wants those fwd'd to the new landing page on brand X Since the reasons for doing this forwarding are legitimate company reasons relating to an acquisition i would have thought it should be ok but can anyone think of a reason why could be bad since i remember in the old days peeps used to redirect domains for seo reasons so worried fwd'ing a load of domains could cause some sort of negative flag with big G ? Also do domain redirects transfer the authority/juice from the old site/domain to the new destination page (new landing page on brand x site) similar to how a 301 redirect works ? Many Thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Is this a safe 301 redirect?
We are moving our site from one platform to another. Currently on our site we have two homepages. "www.homepage.com" and "www.homepage.com/Index" Both pages have some high quality links pointing in on them. The problem: We are going to be doing a 301 redirect from "www.homepage.com/Index" page to "www.homepage.com" as we are moving platforms at this time we weren't going to create a "www.homepage.com/Index" page all. This leaves this page as an empty URL. With this webpage disappearing all together will we lose traction as we are redirecting an empty URL? Or is it better to recreate this "www.homepage.com/Index" on our new platform redirect it and wait for google to deIndex this page for us? As well is there a tutorial for how to implement 301 redirects or is this something worth looking for a developer and pay someone to do?
Technical SEO | | HCGDiet0 -
Trailing slash 301 redirect code
Hi, I have code for redirecting trailing slash to non-trailing slash, which works fine: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^.yourdomain.co.uk$ [NC]RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] (got code from http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html) But I cant find a code for redirecting to the trailing slash version anywhere, and I cant modify the above code myself. Can someone help resolve this issue please, or point me to a resource. Thanks very much James
Technical SEO | | jamesjackson0 -
301 Redirects
Last year we merged 3 websites into 1 website and launched the new site in February. When developing the new site I created 301 redirects for all the pages from the old sites to the new site. Unfortunately when the new website was created the URLs were not optimised for search engines. I now need to optimised the page URLs. In theory I need to create new 301 redirects from this existing pages to the new optimised URLS. I am concerned that in a few years I might end up with a string of 301 redirects and if I break some links I might loose some ranking. How many redirects will link juice work for? I hope I'm clear here, if not I've attached a image showing what I'm doing. Thank you. unledfh.jpg
Technical SEO | | Seaward-Group0 -
301 Redirect NOT Working as Expected - HELP!
Hi! I just launched our newly coded site and just realized the installed 301 is NOT working. The URL string is the same EXCEPT for the removal of /shop/. Here is the code in .htaccess: ############################################ enable rewrites Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on #RedirectMatch 301 ^/shop?/$ http://hiphound.com/ RedirectMatch 301 ^/shop?/$ http://hiphound.com ########################################### When I go to Google and click on an old link I get a 404. No bueno!! Here is an example: http://hiphound.com/shop/rubit-dog-tag-clip I thought (and was told) that the installed 301 would send this page to: http://hiphound.com/rubit-dog-tag-clip It's not. Please HELP!! 🙂 What am I doing wrong??? Lynn
Technical SEO | | hiphound0