Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there any benefit to changing 303 redirects to 301?
-
A year ago I moved my marketplace website from http to https. I implemented some design changes at the same time, and saw a huge drop in traffic that we have not recovered from. I've been searching for reasons for the organic traffic decline and have noticed that the redirects from http to https URLs are 303 redirects. There's little information available about 303 redirects but most articles say they don't pass link juice. Is it worth changing them to 301 redirects now? Are there risks in making such a change a year later, and is it likely to have any benefits for rankings?
-
It's a tricky lesson to learn as Google often release posts and content which over-burdens developers with false-confidence (it's not the developer's fault). Basically, website owners and company owners often ask broad brush questions and pressure Google to respond with simple, succinct answers (like in Matt's old Webmaster videos).
Google cave into this pressure and say stuff like "yeah doing redirects for your migration is good", but in some (not all) of their published content, completely neglect to mention that some redirect types are more worthy than others within the context of certain situations.
Developers read posts written by Google and just think "ok fine that's how it is now so we just do that" and, of course - unless you make a livelihood studying all this stuff, you end up pretty far wide of the mark.
I recently answered this question by a webmaster whom had taken it for granted that, because Google 'can' crawl JS they always will (under all circumstances). He made a move in terms of technical on-site architecture and saw loss as well
Just ask the guys who know!
And yes, do the redirects, you may as well. You might still get something back from it (probably not a lot though)
-
Thank you for the comprehensive response.
I had never heard of a 303 redirect until I discovered today that I had them all over my site almost by accident, so I've learned a major lesson learned on getting input from an SEO specialist before undertaking any major website work with my developers because clearly there's a lot I don't know and they don't know... worse, I don't know what I don't know until something goes wrong!
I didn't expect I'd be able to get any of my link equity back after a year of trying to find the cause of the problem, but I will definitely have the redirects changed ASAP just in case there's anything left of it!
Thanks again for the helpful advice.
-
You should have used 301 redirects which infer a 'permanent' move from one place to another. Google doesn't send link juice through 301 redirects because that's what the SEO industry says they should do, it's the other way around. Status code 301 infers that the contents of a web page have permanently moved from one URL to another, thus is 'may' be fair to shift all (or a portion) of SEO (ranking) equity from one address to another
Note that even if you do the right thing at the right time, it won't always work. If your redesign heavily removes content (which was previously perceived as useful) from a web page, don't expect the 301 redirect to carry 'all' the link juice from one page to another. Had this recently with a client who decided to streamline some of their more in-depth articles as part of a site redesign and move to HTTP (simultaneously). They did correctly use 301 redirects (A to B, nothing in the middle) and they did point all the posts from the old HTTP URLs to the HTTPS URLs on the new site (same domain, but again - protocol altered and change of design)
Because the posts contained quite radically different (stripped down) content on the new site, the 301 redirects only seemed to pass across between 25% and 33% of the ranking equity. They did everything right, but if you're telling Google that content has moved from one URL to another, you had better actually move the content (lies don't work)
If you take into account that, even doing most things correctly you can cause some major issues, if you use the wrong response code then obviously you greatly increase the risk of losing all (or much of) your ranking power
I'm going to say this now, one year is probably way too late to get back to where you were just by changing some redirects. If that's your expectation, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Redirects (of any kind) slowly decay over time and most people think that a lot of the equity transfer has occurred by six months, let alone twelve. If you transferred your ranking equity into the void of cyberspace... well, it's probably 'mostly' gone by now. I'd still recommend converting the redirects as it really is your only option other than building your ranking equity over from scratch
**Let's get onto, why what you did was wrong **(why is important!)
So to you, a '303' is a type of redirect. But in its wider context, it's actually a 'status code'. Not all status codes result in a redirect and they all mean completely different things. They basically tell a client or a web-browser, which makes a request (that results in some kind of error), what the best way to proceed is. Some just send information back, others perform more concrete actions like the 3XX codes (redirect codes)
One common thing we get on here is, people saying: "I want to de-index some pages from Google, but I can't get Meta no-index into the source code, what can I do?" - very often I look at those questions and find, the pages which they want de-indexed are sending status code 404. Status code (error) 404 simply means "this resource or page isn't available temporarily, but keep tabs on it because it's only temporary and it will be back". So quite often I suggest to them, well you can deploy no-index in the HTTP header via X-robots, but also why don't you change the status code from 404 to 410? Status code 410 roughly means "gone, not coming back so don't bother coming back"
You did use a redirect code, but you used the wrong one which had the wrong meaning:
So what does status code 303 mean?
I cite from Wikipedia:
"The HTTP response status code 303 See Other is a way to redirect web applications to a new URI, particularly after a HTTP POST has been performed, since RFC 2616 (HTTP 1.1).
According to RFC 7231, which obsoletes RFC 2616, "A 303 response to a GET request indicates that the origin server does not have a representation of the target resource that can be transferred by the server over HTTP. However, the Location field value refers to a resource that is descriptive of the target resource, such that making a retrieval request on that other resource might result in a representation that is useful to recipients without implying that it represents the original target resource."
So in English a 303 translates roughly to:
"Hey web user. I can't give you the page you are requesting because it's gone, and I can't redirect you to that same content on another URL because guess what? It wasn't moved to another URL. That being said, I think this page I am going to send you to, is at least partially relevant. I'll send you there - ok?"
But you're only stating that the resource is partially equivalent, so you can only expect fractional (at best) equity transfer from one URL to the other
Using a 301 tells Google: "this exact page has moved to this other exact page and it's likely to be 75% the same or higher overall. Ok so maybe we changed how the nav menu looks an moved to HTTPS, but the written content and images and stuff that was unique to this page to begin with - that should basically be all the same. As such, you don't need to re-evaluate the ranking potential of this page"
... of course, Google still will (in many instances) re-evaluate the page against the query, which is why (although loads of people say they do) - 301 redirects don't always transfer 100% of your SEO equity. If the content is adjusted too much, even 301s don't save you and it's time to build up again from ground zero
As stated redirects decay over time as the SEO equity moves from one place to another. In your case you have asked Google to move one portion of the equity from one URL to another (which they may or may not have, depending on content alterations) and also to delete the remaining portion of your ranking power. If that movement is now complete, then gains from fixing the redirects won't be all you are hoping and dreaming of
It will help. Be sure that you do it, because it's a seconds to minutes change in your .htaccess file or web.config file. It's not hard, it's very simple and you could luck out. But with a whole year behind you... the odds aren't fantastic. Still it's some 'free' equity that you can get back, which you won't have to re-earn (so take it). But it won't be all-encompassing (sorry)
-
You have to use 301 redirect. Read this link from Google Search Console help https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en
you can preserve the "link juice" from SEO perspective if you use 301 redirect.
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
-
Will 301 Redirects Slow Page Speed?
We have a lot of subdomains that we are switching to subfolders and need to 301 redirect all the pages from those subdomains to the new URL. We have over 1000 that need to be implemented. So, will 301 redirects slow the page speed regardless of which URL the user comes through? Or, as the old urls are dropped from Google's index and bypassed as the new URLs take over in the SERPs, will those redirects then have no effect on page speed? Trying to find a clear answer to this and have yet to find a good answer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 12, 2017, 12:24 PM | MJTrevens0 -
Setting up 301 Redirects after acquisition?
Hello! The company that I work for has recently acquired two other companies. I was wondering what the best strategy would be as it relates to redirects / authority. Please help! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 6, 2015, 5:32 PM | Colin.Accela0 -
Is it a problem to use a 301 redirect to a 404 error page, instead of serving directly a 404 page?
We are building URLs dynamically with apache rewrite.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 13, 2014, 11:11 AM | lcourse
When we detect that an URL is matching some valid patterns, we serve a script which then may detect that the combination of parameters in the URL does not exist. If this happens we produce a 301 redirect to another URL which serves a 404 error page, So my doubt is the following: Do I have to worry about not serving directly an 404, but redirecting (301) to a 404 page? Will this lead to the erroneous original URL staying longer in the google index than if I would serve directly a 404? Some context. It is a site with about 200.000 web pages and we have currently 90.000 404 errors reported in webmaster tools (even though only 600 detected last month).0 -
Php 301 redirect
Hi I am migrating an old wordpress site to a custom PHP site and the URL profiles will be different, so want to retain all link profiles and more importantly if a user visits the old urls via search then they are seamlessly transferred to the new equivalent page For example www.domain.com/about-us is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/aboutus.php www.domain.com/furniture is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/furniture-collections.php etc What is the best way of achieving this apart from .htaccess as not 100% confident of doing this. Could it be done via PHP or using meta tags?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 12, 2019, 11:17 AM | ocelot0 -
301 or 302 Redirects to Mobile Site
When it's detected that a mobile device is accessing the site it has the ability to redirect from www.example.com to m.example.com. Does it make more sense to employ a 301 or 302 redirect here? Google says a 301 but does not explain why (although usually I stick to "when in doubt, 301") . It seems like a 302 would prevent passing link juice to the mobile site and having mobile-optimized results also showing up in Google's index. What is the preference here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 9, 2012, 3:01 AM | SEOTGT0 -
Is 301 redirect suggested on pagination pages
Hi - Due to pagination the default page of site is coming in 2 url with - ?page=1/ sub-url and /sub-url is 301 a recommended solution due to this pagination urls Also - is it required to create separate title and meta description of every pagination page We are taking specifically in context of our discounts and offer section http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_offers&view=list&Itemid=9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 29, 2012, 3:24 PM | Modi0 -
Is it ok to use both 301 redirect and rel="canonical' at the same time?
Hi everyone, I'm sorry if this has been asked before. I just wasn't able to find a response in previous questions. To fix the problems in our website regarding duplication I have the possibility to set up 301's and, at the same time, modify our CMS so that it automatically sets a rel="canonical" tag for every page that is generated. Would it be a problem to have both methods set up? Is it a problem to have a on a page that is redirecting to another one? Is it advisable to have a rel="canonical" tag on every single page? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 25, 2012, 12:18 PM | SDLOnlineChannel0 -
How To 301 Redirect .html pages
I need to redirect a page/URL that is purely .html to a new location. I don't know how to do this. All the redirects I can find are for server side code pages .php/.aspx etc. From my understanding I can't put a server side redirect in a .html file. I am hosting on a microsoft server, however the new page I am redirecting to is .php. I am running some WordPress (.php) files on the server. I need to make it redirect before the old page loads so visitors don't start reading something that is about to get redirected Can someone please help me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 13, 2011, 9:32 PM | MyNet0