Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 10:35 AM
Webmaster level: AllOver the past couple of years, we’ve released over 375 videos on our YouTube channel, with the majority of them answering direct questions from webmasters. Today, we’re starting to release a freshly baked batch of videos, and you might notice that some of these are a little different. Don’t worry, they still have Matt Cutts in a variety of colored shirts. Instead of only focusing on quick answers to specific questions, we’ve created some longer videos which cover important webmaster-related topics. For example, if you were wondering what the limits are for 301 redirects at Google, we now have a single video for that:
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for this round. You can be the first to hear about the new videos as they’re released by subscribing to our channel or following us on Twitter.
29 comments:
Nice demonstration and thanks for the information Matt... You cleared some of my doubts :)
Matt, excellent post! One question that wasn't discussed - why do old/legacy URLs that are 301 redirected remain visible within the SERP?
I have a related question. Suppose I had a section of my website about widgets. I had a page about big widgets, a page about small widgets, a page about round widgets, and a page about square widgets. In my redesign, I decide to make one, comprehensive page about big, small, round and square widgets. This could even be my home, or root, page.
Is there a limit on how many 301 redirects you could do then? In this case, 4 of my old URL's will 301 redirect to the same page. Is there a limit on how many can go to the same page in this manner? What if I had 100 widget pages all redirect to the same comprehensive widgets page?
@Dan Deceuster - There is no limit on that either. As long as it makes sense (to users and search engine bots).
I have done this several times over the last 10 years, it's absolutely no problem to do this no matter how many redirected documents find a new, common location.
It becomes critical for your rankings only when you overdo it. Collecting 100 widget pages - which were previously 100 single documents - in one document will make it difficult for the user to understand what's going. Your rankings will suffer as well.
Closing: Your question is not "how many redirects are ok" but "how many redirects make sense". If your website confuses users, it will most likely confuse search engine bots as well.
Wow, great timing. I'm in the process over the next few weeks of doing a lot of redirects.
I agree with you, it's nice to get back and just refresh yourself with the basics. Thanks Matt.
I thought that would already be clear to everyone by common sense.
What about redirecting multiple domains to a single domain? Is there a limit on that?
Thank you for this very useful and artistic drawing…O_o
Thank you Matt, in give me more information
Does anybody know how to do 301 redirects for single URLs on Microsoft IIS web server? My admin says it's not possible, but I don't believe him :)
Thanks.
very nice.... thanks so much matt and google....
Nice tutorials and post.
Peter,
You are correct, there is a way to implement 301 re-directs on IIS server.
I believe IIS7 offers that. For IIS 6 and earlier; you will need to be on dedicated server - not shared - and you will need to install the ISAPI blog-in. The blog-in costs about $99.
Your admin can search for that
Thanks for the information. I am in a process of implementing a new CMS for our current 6 yr old business site, we will migrate all the content to the new site. Should I be considering 301 Redirect for any reason?
Any time you are changing the URL structure - or a single URL - you need to use 301 re-direct.
That is assuming that the change is permanent.
Are you changing the URL structure?
Are you updating the technology? Does that result on a change in the file extension? For example .html to .php?
If the answer is yes, then you need to implement 301 re-directs.
This project may affect the structure of your site, and it may be beneficial for your company to consult an expert.
Excellent demo and I'm so happy you guys are continuing to create more webmaster videos this year. 301's are always the preferred method.
This is a little off-topic, but it involves 301 redirects; I apologize if this is not the right place to post this.
I recently 301'd my law firm's domain, http://cookazlaw.com/, to a newly registered domain, http://cooklaw.co/. Prior to, and likely after, the 301, a competitor of ours had been building malicious back links from low-quality sites with identical keyword-rich anchor get to http://cookazlaw.com/. Before someone runs their mouth, no it was not my firm or anyone associated with us.
After the 301, the new domain ranked reasonably well in the SERPs, but as of Tuesday, it is nowhere to be found.
Should I just scrap the new domain and remove the 301 redirect? Will the rankings likely be restored?
Thanks.
Good idea to go back and do some basic tutorials. It's especially helpful for those of us who aren't as technically oriented and are trying to catch up on things.
I just purchased a new domain that I would like to take the place for an older website I have in the same niche that's more relevant to the content I have on the old domain.
I will no longer be using the old domain once the content is transferred over.
Question is, what is the best way to show the search engine bots that I moved my site? Will I have to do a single 301 Redirect for root PLUS all subpages (website is on wordpress with approx indexed 400 pages)?
Or, can I simply 301 the root and be OK?
Any help will be appreciated. And thank you Matt for the timely tutorial.
Best,
Nohel
great video cleared up some questions I had about 301 redirects
I have the same question at SlimCalhoun:
Can someone please explain why old/legacy URLs that are 301 redirected remain visible within the SERP?
Thanks! Nice video, but I got one question left. How does it work with different websites? Is there a limit with that?
I'm redirecting from a NetSuite site which added a lot of parameters to my urls -- sometimes the same set of parameters, but in a different order. This means that Google is reporting crawl errors for the same page 20 or 30 times, with various combinations of parameters trailing off the end. Do I need to create multiple 301 redirects for every combination of parameters or can I just create one 301 redirect for the base url and then let Google's parameter handler figure out to ignore all other versions?
I have seen these guides several times. But it is nice to know right from the google team, how to do it accurately. So the rest is assured.
I have a question for Matt Cuts:
What is going on in the search queries tab of Google Webmaster tools?
Well, Is there any sandbox on 301 redirects in SERPS as my page (inner url) disappeared from search altogether and I am not able to see either the new or old url. Wondering what to do next?
Any help is appreciated
I want to move my domain name (registered with Network Solutions) from Google Sites to another provider, possibly Google Blogger.
The domain name, www.ghostsigns.co.uk, currently points to the content hosted on Google Sites. Is it possible to use a 301 to do this kind of switch and keep all the content in tact?
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