Is 301 redirect the only way when using Vanity URLs?
-
We have been using vanity urls for some of our pages. Mostly the pages that have a vanity URL have a long URL length. But now the problem is, the vanity URL is getting displayed on the search engine when the particular keyword related to the page is entered. I checked the google search console, the vanity URL is indexed and the original URL remains unindexed. What should I do?
Is adding 301 redirect to the vanity URLs are solution? Since some of vanity URLs are not redirecting to the original. Some of the original pages are not getting traffic.
Also, can using canonical tag help?
-
Hello,
You could also restrain access by setting up an endpoint on the vanity URLs.
Please signup on my free site https://passkart.com/ if you'd like to collaborate. It has a secure chat.
-
Typically, a "vanity URL" is an address you use in advertisements which is redirected to your actual page, sometimes along with some tracking parameters in the query strings portion of the URL. This is usually for the purpose of shortening the URL, or making it easy to remember, for use on radio, television, print, billboards, etc. So, in this context, yes a redirect (usually 301) takes care of sending the traffic (and the search engines if any happen to discover one of the vanity URLs) to the real page.
But the phrasing of your question makes me think you are not using "vanity URLs" in this context. If they are being indexed, I assume this mean you are creating actual copies of the pages, or possibly forwarding the page request without changing the URL. If this is the case, then using canonicals (one from the secondary to the primary page, and a self-referencing one on the primary page itself) can be of help to you here. But, I would first question why you are ending up with multiple URLs for one page in the first place.
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
-
Where to put 301 redirects in my Wordpress htaccess file?
I have about 25 301 redirects in my Wordpress htaccess file, that look like this: <code>Redirect301/store/index.html https://www.notesinspanish.com/store-home/</code> At the moment they are at the bottom of my htaccess file, below the usual Wordpress rewrite rules: <code># BEGIN WordPress <ifmodulemod_rewrite.c>RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] # END WordPress</ifmodulemod_rewrite.c></code> So they are below all that. Above my WP rewrite rules I have a number of other rules from plugins (caching, ssl). Are my 301's OK where they are at the very bottom of that file? They are working, and redircting pages correctly. Should they be somewhere else? Many thanks for any help. Thanks for any help.
Technical SEO | | Benspain0 -
Use 301 or rel=canonical
I have a page on my site that is showing in search results at #9. I created another page on my site with the search term in the url. Wondering if I 301 or rel=canonical. Thank you, Kerry
Technical SEO | | Hydraulicgirl0 -
Backlink management: 301 redirect unsuccessful.
I am managing my company's spammy backlinks using Open Site Explorer. Our company owns a few URLs that are related to our company or are iterations of our main URL. All of these additional URLs have 301 redirects to our main domain. Open Site Explorer has identified one of these URLs as having a spam score of 8 indicating a 56% chance of Google crawler penalization. Obviously, this is a red flag. Instead of being redirected to our main domain upon visiting the URL, I was directed to what seems to be an automatically generated, generic webpage with links that seem to have been generated by keywords from our main domain. I have seen this type of webpage before when incorrectly typing in URLs from other pages. They tend to look the same. They have a black background with the URL written in grey at the top and a rectangular related links bar. Is anyone familiar with my problem and could you offer any advice? Thanks, Ben
Technical SEO | | SOLVISTA0 -
Best way to noindex long dynamic urls?
I just got a Mozcrawl back and see lots of errors for overly dynamic urls. The site is a villa rental site that gives users the ability to search by bedroom, amenities, price, etc, so I'm wondering what the best way to keep these types of dynamically generated pages with urls like /property-search-page/?location=any&status=any&type=any&bedrooms=9&bathrooms=any&min-price=any&max-price=any from indexing. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated : )
Technical SEO | | wcbuckner0 -
I've consolidated other domains to a single one with 301 redirects, yet the new domain authority in MOZ is much less that the redirected ones. Is that right?
I'm trying to increase the domain authority of my main site, so decided to consolidate other sites. One of the other sites has a much higher domain authority, but I don't know why after a 301 redirect, the new site's domain authority hasn't changed on over a month. Does MOZ take account of thes types of things?
Technical SEO | | bytecgroup2 -
Could a URL change path conflict a 301 redirect?
Hi Mozzers, We create multiple pages for one of my client. Some of them are replacing old pages. I setup 5 of them out of 40. I was able to set them live via the drupal CMS. The new pages were actually published but didn't have any URL but had nodes in directory such as www.example.com/node298. To set them live i changed the url path to one page that already existed( www.example.com/old). In order to setup the replacing page: www.example.com/node298 i added the same name as the old one but in order to avoid URL conflicts with new page(www.example.com/new) I had to change the old page's url path as well such as www.example.com/old2) I know i have to 301 redirect the old to the new obviously but my question is: does a URL path change on the old page www.example.com/old matters in when 301 ing it? will it still transfer all the juice to the new page Visual Process: Main goal: www.example.com/old redirect to www.example.com/new but these two are exactly the same url So modification of URL path: www.example.com/old to www.example.com/old2 to avoid URL conflict Therefore www.example.com/old2 =www.example.com/old (just url change path difference) Question: Because of this url change, will a 301 from www.example.com/old2 to www.example.com/new will still carry all the juice that www.example.com/old carried or not? I hope i didn't make it too confusing. Let me know if it is the case Thanks Mozzers Ty
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Help needed please with 301 redirects in htaccess file.
In summary, we're currently having issues with our htaccess file. 301 redirects are going through to the new described URL but in addition the new URL is followed by a ? and the old URL. How can we get rid of the ? and previous URL so they don't appear as an ending. None of the examples we've found re this issue online appear to work. Can anyone please offer some advice? Can we use a RewriteRule to stop this happening? Here's a summary of the htaccess file REDIRECT CODE BEGINS HERE LONG LIST OF REDIRECTS, which appear to be set up perfectly fine. REDIRECT CODE ENDS DirectoryIndex index.php <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymLinks
Technical SEO | | petersommertravels
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond $1 !^(images|system|themes|pdf|favicon.ico|robots.txt|index.php) [NC]
RewriteRule ^.htaccess$ - [F]
RewriteRule ^favicon.ico - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]</ifmodule> DirectoryIndex index.php0 -
301 Redirect with an Exact Domain name Match
My Client had a site that ranked for a pretty competitive two word phrase, but for a variety of reasons had to transfer the site to a different domain name (with none of the previous keywords). We've 301'd everything just fine to the new site, but our traffic for that two word phrase, as well as related long tail traffic, is beginning to drop. Could the drop be related to something that we didn't do well in the transfer? Or is it due to the new domain name now not being an exact match? Sitenote question: Our Google Analytics is still set up for the former domain name and shows data just fine. Is there any reason to switch GA to the new domain? What are the pros/cons? Much thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | TrevorMcKendrick0