How do you explain the problem with several re-directs to a client?
-
I have a client who has done a lot of link building, and just migrated his site from an old platform to a more seo friendly one, but now he is moving pages on the new site.
Old Site --> (301 re-direct) --> New Site --> (301 re-direct) --> Changed Page -->(301 re-direct) Changed page again, etc
All his changes are making a lot of etra work for me every month and I feel he is wasting a lot of link juice,
How Would you explain to the client why they shouldn't be using several re-directs?
What can I do to make sure that they keep as much link juice as possible?
-
I have never worked for Google or any other search engine so I want to make it clear the below is my best understanding of how the process works, and I use it to base my actions upon. I feel my understanding is valid but the examples could probably use a bit of work. I am always willing to entertain other ideas.
Crawlers find and explore links. They capture data and record it in a database. That data is then processed by the search engine. If Page is A indexed, the URL will show in SERPs as Page A. If later you 301 redirect Page A to Page B, when the crawler discovers the 301 redirect the search engine will update the URL in SERPS to Page B. With me so far?
Later you decide to 301 redirect Page B to Page C. When the search engine recognizes the redirect (i.e. the crawler discovers it) the URL will once again be updated in SERPs to Site C. Any instances of the Page A or Page B URLs in the search engines database would be displayed as Page C in SERPs.
Despite the search engine's database having the correct URL to display in SERPs, crawlers are not provided this information. As long as link exists and a crawler can find it, the crawler will attempt to follow it, subject to normal factors such as nofollow, crawl budget, etc. If you modify the initial redirect from Page A to Page C, the crawler will detect the new header change and the search engine will update their records accordingly.
The above information was shared with respect to the appearance of the URL in SERPs, but it should be identical for the backlinks as well. Rather then forwarding the backlinks from Page A to Page B, those links would be directly forwarded to Page C.
So instead of it re-directing from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C. Is this better? if so why?
If you modify the existing redirect to go from Page A to Page C, it is better because it is a single redirect. It is better for your servers (less redirects to process), better for users (quicker page loads), better for you (less redirects to manage and less opportunities for something to go wrong) and therefore better for search engines. You are rewarded for this improvement with your link juice flow being stronger.
-
Thanks Ryan,
Great Answer and illustration!
A follow up questions, what happens if you go back and change the old 301 re-directs?
So instead of it re-directing from A to B then C, we write a new redirect for A to C.
Is this better? if so why?
-
Multiple redirects is a really bad idea and should be corrected whenever possible. The consideration I ask clients to understand is how multiple redirects amplify the loss of link juice. The numbers I will use in the below example are simply how I explain it when asked, and I don't have any solid math to back it up. As we all know, the exact process is kept secret.
Redirect #1 = lose 10% link juice
Redirect #2 = 1st link loses 10%, 2nd link loses 10%x2=20%, total 30% loss
Redirect #3 = 1st link loses 10%, 2nd link loses 20%, 3rd link loses 30% = 60% loss
Redirect #4 = 100% loss.
Again the numbers are likely not that dramatic, but it helps get site owners out of the mindset of "well, a 301 loses just a drop of link juice so 3 or 4 redirects doesn't lose much". We know the trust factors for a site rapidly diminish in an amplified manner a few links away from the source. We know PR on a site evaporates almost completely 4 links into a site. Even top PR sites like DMOZ and Yahoo directory have pages not indexed because there is not enough PR passed through their links to pages on their site which are deep. It is logical to think this same concept applies to redirects. It is another form of following links.
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
-
Is it a good idea to optimize for keywords that have no search volume if they're ranked?
Hello Moz Community, I have some questions I hope some of you can help with. We’re doing SEO work for a client that provides outsourced IT and managed IT services in Phoenix, AZ and cities in the Phoenix metro area (i.e. Glendale, Tempe, Scottsdale, etc.) They’re currently ranked for or targeting the following keywords: • consulting phoenix az (1)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marnipatterson
• outsourced it phoenix (2)
• phoenix it support (3)
• it services Scottsdale (5)
• it consulting firm phoenix (targeting)
• it solutions phoenix (targeting) We have recommended the following keywords based on monthly search totals, competitive level and difficulty ratings in Moz. • IT consulting phoenix
• it consultant company
• outsourced it
• it support services
• it consulting services
• outsourcing it
• outsourced tech support Questions
1. While I know it’s a good idea to optimize for keywords that you're currently ranked for, there’s no search volume for any of these. So, I recommended non-geo versions since Google provides search results based on the user’s location. Will this preserve the company's current rankings?
2. If not optimizing for their current keywords will hurt their rankings, will using the current keywords as secondary keywords suffice? If so, do we need to include them in the content for keyword density?
3. Since search engine algorithms now focus so heavily on user intent, I assume we’re covered for all variations of a keyword (i.e. outsource it, outsourced it, outsourcing it, etc.) Is this correct?
4. They want to rank for “cloud services” and “cloud solutions.” Both are very competitive with high difficulty rankings. So, I recommended “cloud migration” and “cloud strategy” as alternatives since these are the main services they provide. Will including “cloud services” and “cloud solutions” as secondary keywords help them increase their rankings for both? If you’ve dealt with a similar situation, I'd appreciate your insight and advice. Thanks!0 -
A client rebranded a few years ago and doesn't want to be associated with it's old brand name. He wishes not to appear when the old brand is searched in Google, is there something we can do?
The problem is there was redirection between the old branded site and the new one, and now when you type in the name of the old brand, the new one comes up. I have desperately tried to convince this client there is nothing we can do about it, dozens of news articles crop up with the two brands together as this was a hot topic a few years ago, but just in case I missed something I thought I'd ask the community of experts here on Moz. An example for this would be Tyco Healthcare that became covidien in 2007. When you type tyco healthcare, covidien crops up here and there. Any ideas? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Netsociety0 -
Weird indexing problem - Can it be solved?
Hi Been building and optimising sites for 15 years and this is one of the hardest problems I ever came across. So any help would be very much appreciated. Here we go: For some mysterious reason this URL http://weekend.visitsweden.com/no/ has been indexed as http://weekend.visitsweden.com even if we tried all we can to correct it. The problem is that since the latter points to the first URL with a 301 it refuses to get any page rank. Also it does not get visible in Google at all. Just a recap of what we have tried so far: Add site to webmaster tools Add proper sitemap.xml Add 301 redirect to the correct URL An easy way to locate the problem is to search for the main content of the site. As you can see it returns the wrong URL and the correct URL does not even get listed. Again, any help is very much appreciated. Kind regards Fredrik
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Resultify0 -
Severe health issues are found on your site. - Check site health (GWT)
Hi, We run a Magento website - When i log in to Google Webmaster Tools, I am getting this message: Severe health issues are found on your site. - <a class="GNHMM2RBFH">Check site health
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
</a>Is robots.txt blocking important pages? Some important page is blocked by robots.txt. Now, this is the weird part - the page being blocked is the admin page of magento - under
www.domain.com/index.php/admin/etc..... Now, this message just wont go away - its been there for days now - so why does Google think this is an "important page"? It doesnt normally complain if you block other parts of the site ?? Any ideas? THanks0 -
Time sensitive: HELP! We are having a problem doing a 301 redirect.....what can we do instead?
Our website has dynamic URLs and we are moving to another server/platform. 301 redirects is looking like a highly unlikely solution. A 3rd party company is handling the back-end of the website which they say works more like a "search engine" than a traditional website. Maybe that explains why they're having a hard time with the 301 redirects. Worst case scenario: we can't use the 301 redirect. What else can we do? We are considering "Indicate your canonical (preferred) URLs by including them in a Sitemap" as Google describes here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139066#2. I'm wondering if this method only applies to duplicate content........and what would happen once the old website results in a 404 page...... HELP! We need to cross over to the new platform as soon as possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PatriotOutfitters810 -
A potential client who got busted !
We had a call this week from a company who have been using a SEO company providing link building services. The back links they have been generating are seriously dodgy back links ! www.jumpforfun.co.uk Here are some examples of the back links - http://www.utc.fr/interactions/?FORUM-DEBAT-quel-s-role-s-pour-les http://mad.blogtv.uol.com.br/2010/03/12/homenagens-ao-grande-cartunista-glauco http://medical.gate2finance.com/node/67 Yes a seriously dodgy back link profile ! He received the following email from google via webmaster tools - Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.jumpforfun.co.uk/, We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team I mentioned to the client I would speak to the community on SEO moz to the owner of the site and see what opinions other SEO's would have on solving this issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0 -
SEO Architecture for several operating regions in Australia
Hi peoples, I'm looking to expand my company (www.noyelling.com.au) from Brisbane to other major Australian cities, and really need to nail the way the site is set up and the SEO strategy before committing a lot of time, effort and money into getting top rankings in different cities around Oz. Most of our SEO clout currently is on our home page, and it is optimised very heavily for Brisbane-specific keywords. My idea for new regions is to follow a similar approach by creating a new 'home' page for each new city (along with a separate pricing and service area page). e.g. www.noyelling.com.au/perth/ www.noyelling.com.au/sydney/ etc etc The idea would then be to build links and citations to each of these city-specific home pages to get them ranking for all the top local keywords. Do you think this is the best way to go about this, or could I consolidate my efforts somehow? Key considerations are: Need to develop a natural link profile Nail local SEO Quality usability for customers (arriving on a page for their city rather than having to navigate to their city)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | duncan2740 -
Have a problem with our home page. Is temporary 301 redirect an option?
Hey Mozers, I discovered this morning that the home page for my website is rendering fine in Chrome and Firefox, but very poorly in IE. My analytics show that over 50% of my visitors are using IE. As a result of the problem, IE has a bounce rate 32% higher than other browsers. I'm not a web developer and I'm fairly new to SEO, so I'm guessing that it's going to take me at least a couple days to get it fixed. In the meantime, I was considering doing a 301 redirect from the home page to the largest category page in hopes of keeping some of the IE users from bouncing while I get the home page sorted out. Would there be any long term negative effects from this once I get the page sorted out and take the 301 off it? Are there any other solutions that would be better? Thanks for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | matthewbyers0