302 error removing site from results
-
I have a client who had a screwy url structure based off of parameters and all. They hired a developer that added the keyword to the end of the url and set up 302 redirects to the new keyword included url.
Since then the entire site has virtually gone missing in the results but it is not penalized. I put in a request with webmaster tools for reconsideration and they said there was no penalty.
I only just found the 302 problem today and think this is probably the problem. Could this remove a site from the search results?
-
As for issue #4. I believe that is where they used to have pages for each dimension of a product. So it would be upper level, sub level, product level.
Some products have hundreds of the same thing but with one inch different so they removed those pages and redirected them.
-
It's a little funky, but a couple of things I'm seeing:
(1) Some of your internal links (your catalog links) have the special character code (&) for the ampersands. Although browsers can resolve it, those are definitely not appropriate for URLs in href="" values and could be disrupting internal link-juice. I can't believe it's the whole story, but it isn't helping.
(2) Having your major categories 302-redirect is definitely not a good bet. Unfortunately, I also don't think it's the entire story. You're not even ranking for very specific brand terms, and the home-page is clearly indexed. I would fix (2) ASAP, but I don't know if it's the whole story.
(3) You've got the blog off on a sub-domain with a few indexed pages, but it seems to have no content. Unless you're going to ramp that up, it's probably counter-productive.
(4) I'm seeing some weird data in OSE and found that all of your non-www pages are 301-redirecting to the home-page, instead of the appropriate URL. For example:
http://metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=17
...this should go to a category page, but instead goes to the home-page. If you have links to the non-www version, this is potentially a problem. Add this to (1), (2) and (4) and you're compounding the mess.
(5) You have a fair chunk of links from low-value sources. I won't say spammy in all cases, but free link directories, link exchanges, etc. I don't want to list a bunch of examples, since this is a public question. You're teetering on the edge a bit, quality-wise, I suspect.
So, can I tell you definitively which of these it is? Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to completely separate them. I think you should tackle (1), (2) and (4) ASAP. Fix the internal problems, because then the picture will be MUCH clearer. I'd definitely take a look at your link profile and make sure there's nothing too questionable - you may have to tackle that at the same time.
-
I added more info
-
The site is indexed but does not rank for anything at all. It used to and now it doesnt ever since the 302s were added
For instance
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01
goes to
http://www.metalsforasteel.com/Catalog.aspx?Level1=01&Level2=01&C=Steel_Angle
The site is ugly and has poor navigation but that is not something they wish to change. On page is ok but not the best. Their link profile is again not the best but webmaster tools says there are no problems and when I put in a reconsideration request they said nothing was wrong.
It does not rank for anthing, not even its own company name. Nowhere in the top 100.
I want a brand new, more modern and clean site to be done. That however is not really viable.
The home page does not have a 302 but everything else essentially does.
There is no robots.txt file. There is no noindex.
The 302 is the only major thing that we have come across. Been looking into this for weeks and not finding anything that should be causing this to happen
-
It's a little tough to tell without seeing the URLs in question, unfortunately, but it is possible, yes. When you say "has virtually gone missing", what do you mean, precisely? It usually boils down to a continuum:
(1) Not indexed
(2) Indexed but not ranking
(3) Ranking but poorly
A bad 302 setup is more likely to cause (1) and maybe cross into (2) then (3), but it really does depend. The first step is to see how you're being indexed. The other question is if the 302 is creating duplicates or causing crawl/index problems - for example, are both versions of the URL being indexed (that could also be bad)?
If the correct URL is being indexed and it's ranking, but it's just not ranking very well, then I suspect you've got more going on than the 302s. If nothing else, fixing the problem will make the situation cleaner and easier to diagnose. If you add technical problems on top of other problems (like link profile issues), sorting out the mess can be extremely difficult.
-
Is the homepage also 302'd ? Are the pages indexable ? Have you tried to do fetch as Google Bot ? Check the HTTP headers to see what it returns for the homepage as well as some example URLs linked from the homepage. Also check to make sure there's no meta noindex or anything like that. I would also check the robots.txt In my opinion, the 302 could be the least likely culprit, but it might be something either related to that or something from the above. I hope it helps. If not post or pm me the URL.
-
Hey webfeatseo,
First of all what you need to understand is what 302 redirect means: for that I advice you to check Dr. Pete's infographic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes
Now to go further to your question, would it be possible for us to see an URl? It would easy our job to help you out.
Cheers,
Istvan
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
-
Unsolved URL dynamic structure issue for new global site where I will redirect multiple well-working sites.
Dear all, We are working on a new platform called [https://www.piktalent.com](link url), were basically we aim to redirect many smaller sites we have with quite a lot of SEO traffic related to internships. Our previous sites are some like www.spain-internship.com, www.europe-internship.com and other similars we have (around 9). Our idea is to smoothly redirect a bit by a bit many of the sites to this new platform which is a custom made site in python and node, much more scalable and willing to develop app, etc etc etc...to become a bigger platform. For the new site, we decided to create 3 areas for the main content: piktalent.com/opportunities (all the vacancies) , piktalent.com/internships and piktalent.com/jobs so we can categorize the different types of pages and things we have and under opportunities we have all the vacancies. The problem comes with the site when we generate the diferent static landings and dynamic searches. We have static landing pages generated like www.piktalent.com/internships/madrid but dynamically it also generates www.piktalent.com/opportunities?search=madrid. Also, most of the searches will generate that type of urls, not following the structure of Domain name / type of vacancy/ city / name of the vacancy following the dynamic search structure. I have been thinking 2 potential solutions for this, either applying canonicals, or adding the suffix in webmasters as non index.... but... What do you think is the right approach for this? I am worried about potential duplicate content and conflicts between static content dynamic one. My CTO insists that the dynamic has to be like that but.... I am not 100% sure. Someone can provide input on this? Is there a way to block the dynamic urls generated? Someone with a similar experience? Regards,
Technical SEO | | Jose_jimenez0 -
Why are these blackhat sites so successful?
Here's an interesting conundrum. Here are three sites with their respective ranking for "dental implants [city]:" http://dentalimplantsvaughan.ca - 9 (on google.ca) http://dentalimplantsinhonoluluhi.com - 2 (on google.com) http://dentalimplantssurreybc.ca - 7 (on google.ca) These markets are not particularly competitive, however, all of these sites suffer from: Duplicate content, both internally and across sites (all of this company's implant sites have the same exact content, minus the bio pages and the local modifier). Average speed score. No structured data No links And these sites are ranking relatively quickly. The Vaughan site went live 3 months ago. But, what's boggling my mind is that they rank on the first page at all. It seems they're doing the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do, yet they rank relatively well.
Technical SEO | | nowmedia10 -
Help! How to Remove Error Code 901: DNS Errors (But to a URL that doesn't exist!)
I have 2 urgent errors saying there are 2 x error code 909's detected. These don't link to any page - but I can tell there is a mistake somewhere - I just don't know what needs changing. http://www.justkeyrings.co.ukhttp/www.justkeyrings.co.uk/printed-promotional-keyrings http://www.justkeyrings.co.ukhttp/www.justkeyrings.co.uk/blank-unassembled-keyrings Could someone help please? screen-shot-2015-08-11-at-13.18.17.png?t=1439292942
Technical SEO | | FullSteamBusiness0 -
Sudden traffic down after mobile site
Hi to all. I have a huge problem about my web site traffic. We published our mobile site version under mobile domain in m.etilercerrental.com. And we published mobile site sitemap under main site such as sitemap-mobile.xml and notify google from webmaster tools. After a while whole site traffic gone down so badly. Almost 60% gone down which doesnt make sense. Mobile sitemap is hosted under desktop site. And we didnt add any link to switch sites between mobile and desktop version. We automaticly redirect between desktop and mobile versiyons by detecting useragent. One another this is we have announcement section in dekstop version but we dont have it in mobile. But we are not making any redirection to mobile site when user visits the announcement section even by mobile phone. Because we are not displaying it in mobile version.
Technical SEO | | gkhnrtk
One last this is we are making redirections automatically and not asking user preference such as showing a link in the bottom of page to switch sites betwenn mobile and pc version. While developing mobile site we followed instructions in this https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/?hl=tr For find the details I would like to give you some site urls. Site Url : http://www.etilercarrental.com/
Sitemap Xml : http://www.etilercarrental.com/sitemap.xml
Mobile Sitemap Xml : http://www.etilercarrental.com/sitemap-mobile.xml0 -
Cache Not Working on Our Site
We redesigned our site (www.motivators.com) back in April. Ever since then, we can't view the cache. It loads as a blank, white page but the cache text is at the top saying: "This is Google's cache of http://www.motivators.com/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Jul 22, 2013 15:50:40 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more. Tip: To quickly find your search term on this page, press Ctrl+F or ⌘-F (Mac) and use the find bar." Has anyone else ever seen this happen? Any ideas as to why it's happening? Could it be hurting us? Advice, tips, suggestions would be very much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Motivators0 -
Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible. Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this. houses for rent in XXXXX XXXXX homes for rent (XXXXX equals a city name) The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
Technical SEO | | Robbie8299
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms. Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above. What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this. www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings? My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both. Any help would be great!0 -
Crawl Errors
Okay, I was just in my Google Webmaster Tools and was looking at some of the stats. I have 1354 "not found" pages google says. Many of these URL's are bizarre. I don't know what they are. Others I do know. What should I do about this? Especially all the URL's I don't even know what they are?
Technical SEO | | azguy0