301 redirections guarantee nothing
I've seen a few SEO consultants recommend using 301 HTTP redirections to forward traffic from an old location to a new location. It seems logical enough, since that's what it's for (301 - Moved Permanently). So I tried it out when I moved a personal website. I can now say that based on my own experience, using 301 HTTP redirections guarantees nothing :)
why try this?
I decided to try using 301s after one consultant in particular insisted that it was absolutely necessary to avoid losing whatever pagerank the old location had; and it would "ensure the site did not lose standing" in search indexes.
Well I know that consultants don't actually have some secret society with the search engine companies, so they're going on guesses and anecdotal evidence. Maybe they're educated guesses and maybe they're total crap. Depends on how ethical the consultant is.
So I decided to try it out myself, since I'm not getting paid to say it works. I didn't have a specific expectation, I just decided to See What Happens™.
the scenario
For quite some time, the site in question was the third or fourth result on Google for its most relevant keyword. Unfortunately I wasn't checking the public Google PageRank before the move.
The site has some (basic, ethical) SEO techniques including meta keywords (for what they're worth) and a couple of extra keywords included in the <title>. Otherwise it's just accessible XHTML.
the first move
The page has been moved before using nothing more involved than pages with links to the new location. The user had to actually click through. There was no noticeable dip in traffic to the site during or after the move.
the second move
Eventually I decided to move it again, which is when I decided to use 301 HTTP forwarding like the SEO guys tell people to do. Not having access to the server config, I just plunked a .htaccess file into the directory. In that .htaccess, each separate file had a forward to its specific new home.
the result
The new page (targeted by the 301 redirections) bombed out of Google, dropping from the top ten to the bottom of the top 100. The tenth page of results, aka oblivion :) Pagerank dropped to 1 or 2, depending on when and where you checked.
Eventually I removed the .htacess file and just put up a click-through forwarding page. A few weeks on, it's back in the top ten to fifteen on Google and its Pagerank has rallied to 4 (which seems to be about average for any site with even a little traffic).
what went wrong?
Well, this was hardly a scientific test so there are a few things which may have gone wrong.
- I may not have set up the .htaccess properly
- Maybe specifically sending each page to its new URL is bad.
- There were three variations of the old index filename forwarding the new index URL - maybe that's bad.
- Using 301 in any manner may trigger a bad ranking.
- Using 301 to forward an entire site to a different domain may be a bad idea; perhaps you should only use them within the same domain.
- Other factors may have been to blame and the 301 was coincidental.
No matter what, it seems reasonable to say that using 301 HTTP forwards does not guarantee that you'll keep your old search ranking. Even though using 301 is correct according to the HTTP specification, search engines don't simply swap the URL for the new and keep the current rank/index position of the old URL. My guess is that the new site either starts from scratch or - I think more likely in this case - it gets ranked lower than the old one and has to recover from the penalty.
Considering the page went back to the top ten basically right after the 301s were removed, I think the page was getting a negative flag due to the 301s. If I'm right, it's really a pity that unethical usage has ruined yet another useful technology on the 'net.
so should you use 301?
Maybe. But I would only recommend you do it if the usability benefit for your target audience outweighs the risk of dropping in search rankings. I'd guess that using it internally (ie. within your existing domain) is probably fine. Just don't think it will guarantee you won't lose search ranking!
Hi,
I recently moved my old site to its new url. To be honest, I didn't really have much content other than my contact details. I used the 301 to redirect www.mysite.com to www.mysite.com.au I read that this was a 'must'. I just checked and Google has dumped both site from their listing totally! Nothing comes up. So much for the 301. I will note that it did initally rank the new site and even the default Joomla content showed in the search engine results. Reading your post I think I might have an idea why.
1. Google hates replicated content which is why 301 is used in the first place. I am guessing that having the default Joomla content still published on my new site was not a great idea. I can't even begin to guess how many other sites have the EXACT same content still published. I am not a SEO expert but I reckon Google sees this as a problem.
2. It also occured to me that not having my new site ranked on its own merit could be a problem. It might have been a better idea to submit the new site on its own and then do the 301.
3. New links. It could also be that by changing URLs Google might see that my new site has no links to it. Would Google still count links to the old 301 url?
Just some thoughts. Clearly there is a key to 301 as from your post I am not the only one who has had the same problem.
Mame du Bois
Thanks for info. One of our client asked to implement 301 redirection. After read your experiance I decided do not use it. Thanks again
Hi,
I have read your posts regarding 301 redirection with interest. Are these still your views? What is the best way to redirect visitors within your site?
My internal pages have dropped to PR 0 since I moved the pages to a new folder (I was trying to tidy things up & make it easier for me to keep track of it all) and tried to redirect.
I've been trying to redirect my games traffic to this url www.always24-7.co.uk/mgf/
Any help appreciated.
All the best.
Michael.
@Michael: I've not seen anything to change my views, but at the same time I haven't tested things again either. Nor have I seen an alternative method which claims to maintain your rank and automatically forward the URL.
If you're simply redirecting one single page to another (and pagerank is a serious concern), I'd just use a great big link on the page. Remove all the content (avoid duplication) and just have the notice of what's going on. Make sure the text in the link uses suitable keywords for your content (don't use "click here").
You could also use a meta refresh - backed up with a manual link. That would shuffle the majority of traffic through in the short term; but in the long run you'll want to take out the refresh to make sure users notice the change ("update your bookmarks" etc).
It is a low tech solution but in my - anecdotal, unscientific! - experience, these techniques don't seem to cause rank problems. The question is whether the greater good would be the better usability of a server-side redirection.
Discretion is always advised and your mileage may vary! It's worth noting that despite my experience, Google's help documents do say to use 301 redirections - but they also say that to "preserve your rank" you should get sites that link to you to update their links. You can use Google's advanced search to get a list of sites that link to your page.
So it seems that the biggest aspect of keeping your rank is still the sites that link to you.
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