Interesting 302 redirect situation - could they be a good idea??
-
Just started with a new SEO client. The site is built on Sharepoint Server 2007 running Windows Server 2003 R2 on IIS 6.5 (I know, fun times for me).
Being a standard crappy Windows setup, URLs and canonicalization is a huge issue: first and foremost, we get a 302 redirect from the root www.example.com to www.example.com/Pages/default.aspx
Now standard SEO best practices dictate that we rewrite and redirect these pages so they're clean URLs. However that may or may not be possible in the current environment - so is the next best thing to change those to 301s so at least link authority is passed better between pages?
Here's the tricky thing - the 302s seem to be preventing Google from indexing the /Pages/default.aspx part of the URL, but the primary URL is being indexed, with the page content accurately cached, etc.
So,
www.example.com 302 redirects to www.example.com/Pages/default.aspx but the indexed page in Google is www.example.com
www.example.com/sample-page/ 302 redirects www.example.com/sample-page/Pages/default.aspx but the indexed page in Google is www.example.com/sample-page/
I know Matt Cutts has said that in this case Google will most likely index the shorter version of the URL, so I could leave it, but I just want to make sure that link authority is being appropriately consolidated.
Perhaps a rel=canonical on each page of the source URL? i.e. the www.example.com/sample-page/ - however is rel=canonical to a 302 really acceptable?
Same goes for sitemaps? I know they always say end-state URLs only, but as the source URLs are being indexed, I don't really want Google getting all the /Pages/default.aspx crap.
Looking for thoughts/ideas/experiences in similar situations?
-
Unfortunately no - client is finally moving to 2013 which is on IIS7 and have proper rewrite facility.
There doesn't appear to be any decent way to accomplish it on 2010/IIS6.
-
I'm super super late on this, but, did you ever decide on a solution to this issue? Sharepoint 2010 runs into the same problems, and even though it looks to be solved in 2013, the install base of 2010 is still pretty large.
-
Thanks! Yeah site was set up not that long ago, but is a great example of why IT Departments should never be trusted to build websites.
I'm just trying to figure out what's even possible on the current platform.
-
Well share point is really for intranets not a internet website, if it is on iis6 then i was proaoably setup before much was known about SEO.
You can do the rewrites in iis6 uising a httpmoedel, i have an a example in both c# and VB on my website
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/using-ihttpmodule-visual-basic
-
Obviously the 302 is not a preference - it's the way the system has been set up by IT staff who don't know any better. Removing it might not be as simple as flicking a switch as it is how Sharepoint displays content by default.
"/" doesn't render - it 302 redirects to /Pages/default.aspx - sorry I don't quite get what you're asking here?
As the website was built on Sharepoint and hacked to pieces with custom code, we're still trying to figure out what's actually possible from a URL rewrite perspective. Sharepoint is not a natively SEO-friendly system. Rewrites are possible in IIS7, but more difficult in IIS6
-
i dont think the 302 to /pages/default.aspx has anything to do with windows or asp.net, why not just just remove the 302?
What does "/" and pages/default.aspx render? the same page? then yes use a canonical, but one has to ask why have the 302 at all?
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
-
Why is hosting good for SEO?
I've heard a few people mention this now. I have seen hosting packages range from £5 to £1000 per month, and I understand that each comes with their own amounts of storage space, bandwidth and all. Now I understand that page speed is important to SEO and the type of hosting will dictate your page speed, but other than this why is hosting important to SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Blog subdomain not redirecting
Over the last few weeks I have been focused on fixing high and medium priority issues, as reported by the Moz crawler, after a recent transition to WordPress. I've made great progress, getting the high priority issues down from several hundred (various reasons, but many duplicates for things like non-www and www versions) to just five last week. And then there's this weeks report. For reasons I can't fathom, I am suddenly getting hundreds of duplicate content pages of the form http://blog.<domain>.com</domain> (being duplicates with the http://www.<domain>.com</domain> versions). I'm really unclear on why these suddenly appeared. I host my own WordPress site ie WordPress.org stuff. In Options / General everything refers to http://www.<domain>.com</domain> and has done for a number of weeks. I have no idea why the blog versions of the pages have suddenly appeared. FWIW, the non-www version of my pages still redirect to the www version, as I would expect. I'm obviously pretty concerned by this so any pointers greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarkWill0 -
301 Redirecting Multiple Domains
I have several complete websites with blogs setup for different geo locations and was considering forwarding them all to one domain directly would greatly benefit ranking. The blogs are all linked together and that is where most of the links come from. Would I benefit in 301 Redirecting the domains?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WindshieldGuy-2762210 -
Drupal Alinks is this good to use?
Hi, https://drupal.org/project/alinks We have 1,000's of Soft links created like this in 1,000's of pages Each page 1 to 2 links that are soft links would this be fine? SEO would this be good or should we remove it Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Worpress Redirect
I am migrating a WP site from one domain to another for a client. WP is installed at the root. Typically I would simply issue a 301-redirect for the entire domain, however, in this case, the client wants the content in 2 specific subfolders to remain live on the old site and have everything else redirected. Example: olddomain.com/subfolder-1/ olddomain.com/subfolder-2/ Question: what would the the htaccess code look like to pull this off? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SCW0 -
301 redirections done too late - What do you suggest?
Hi, When pushing our new site live, most of the 301 redirections got done too late for several reasons. Understandably, our site rankings in google have taken a hit now. So far we have just tried to perfectly optimize the pages that used to rank well (They weren't even optimized before and were still ranking) , to get our positions back. But does anyone have an idea about what else we could do? Is there a recommended "action plan" when someone is late with their 301 redirections?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohanMattisson0 -
GeoIP - Redirect all but target country
My client would like to redirect all non UK traffic from their UK site to their main group site. I am intending to use a .htaccess redirect, like this: RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} !^GB$
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.group.com$1 [R,L] I have tested the redirect at it works fine. My question is if I put this in place would it have any negative SEO impact on the UK site?0 -
How long should a domain redirect take?
Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0