301-Redirects, PageRank, Matt Cutts, Eric Enge & Barry Schwartz - Fact or Myth?
-
I've been trying to wrap my head around this for the last hour or so and thought it might make a good discussion. There's been a ton about this in the Q & A here, Eric Enge's interview with Matt Cutts from 2010 (http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml) said one thing and Barry Schwartz seemed to say another: http://searchengineland.com/google-pagerank-dilution-through-a-301-redirect-is-a-myth-149656
Is this all just semantics? Are all of these people really saying the same thing and have they been saying the same thing ever since 2010? Cyrus Shepherd shed a little light on things in this post when he said that it seemed people were confusing links and 301-redirects and viewing them as being the same things, when they really aren't. He wrote "here's a huge difference between redirecting a page and linking to a page." I think he is the only writer who is getting down to the heart of the matter. But I'm still in a fog.
In this video from April, 2011, Matt Cutts states very clearly that "There is a little bit of pagerank that doesn't pass through a 301-redirect." continuing on to say that if this wasn't the case, then there would be a temptation to 301-redirect from one page to another instead of just linking.
VIDEO - http://youtu.be/zW5UL3lzBOA
So it seems to me, it is not a myth that 301-redirects result in loss of pagerank.
In this video from February 2013, Matt Cutts states that "The amount of pagerank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of pagerank that dissipates through a link."
VIDEO - http://youtu.be/Filv4pP-1nw
Again, Matt Cutts is clearly stating that yes, a 301-redirect dissipates pagerank.
Now for the "myth" part. Apparently the "myth" was about how much pagerank dissipates via a 301-redirect versus a link.
Here's where my head starts to hurt:
Does this mean that when Page A links to Page B it looks like this:
A -----> ( reduces pagerank by about 15%)-------> B (inherits about 85% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page
But say the "link" that exists on Page A is no longer good, but it's still the original URL, which, when clicked, now redirects to Page B via a URL rewrite (301 redirect)....based on what Matt Cutts said, does the pagerank scenario now look like this:
A (with an old URL to Page B) ----- ( reduces pagerank by about 15%) -------> URL rewrite (301 redirect) - Reduces pagerank by another 15% --------> B (inherits about 72% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page)
Forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, so not sure if that 72% is right?
It seems to me, from what Matt is saying, the only way to avoid this scenario would be to make sure that Page A was updated with the new URL, thereby avoiding the 301 rewrite?
I recently had to re-write 18 product page URLs on a site and do 301 redirects. This was brought about by our hosting company initiating rules in the back end that broke all of our custom URLs. The redirects were to exactly the same product pages (so, highly relevant). PageRank tanked on all 18 of them, hard. Perhaps this is why I am diving into this question more deeply.
I am really interested to hear your point of view
-
Yes Doug, you totally get my confusion. Your scenarios describe more clearly exactly what I am wondering. In the case of your third example, Matt even stated pretty clearly in the video (perhaps even both videos) that chains of redirects can be a problem.
I totally agree with you that avoiding redirects altogether and updating the links is the way to go. Even Google's own Pagespeed Insight's tool often makes this recommendation when evaluating pagespeed of a site. If 301's are exactly the same as links, why would the tool recommend avoiding them?
Yes, I think perhaps Matt said what he did because he was looking at 301s and links in complete isolation. If so, then what he says is believable in theory, but I can't think of how it would actually happen in practice.
-
It is confusing and it's something I was wondering when I first saw the Matt Cutts, Feb 2013 video. From what Matt says:
- We know that a link won't pass all the page rank. Some page rank disipates over each link.
- the amount of page rank that dissipates though a 301 is identical to the amount that passes through a link.
But, I guess the problem with understanding this is that you can't take 301s and links and consider them in isolation. It's not an either/or.
Consider the following:
1. Page 1 -[link to]-> Page 2
Nice and simple, page 2 gets it's full entitlement of page rank ( taking into account share/link and dissipation)
2. Page 1 -[link to]-> 301 -> Page 3
Now I've got an extra step. Does this mean that the page rank that Page 3 inherits is affected by both the link and then the 301? Does the page rank dissipation happen twice?
If, say 50% (not real numbers!) of page rank value is lost for each link/301, then the original link to the 301 would lose %50 and the 301 would lose the same, (50% of the 50%) which means that page 3 get's just 25%
What if I end up in the horrible situation of having
3. Page 1 -[link to]-> 301 -> 301 -> 301 -> Page 3
Does page rank decay happen on every redirect?
Personally, I've only used redirects where necessary and, where I can, I've tried to get inbound links updated to point to the correct page.
-
Dana,
When you say "inherits about 72% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page", I think that's where your understanding goes off track....either that, or it's where mine goes off track, because my understanding is that the percentage of PR that is passed from one page to another page is based on an unknown "X amount", not on the linking page's toolbar pagerank. I think is better to say ...inherits about 72% of the pagerank that page A is able to pass...---not 72% of Page A's pagrerank. Does that make sense?
-
In your second example above, the link would still pass 85% pagerank not 72%. Obviously, in order for a 301 to pass pagerank, it needs to be used in a link. If a 301 link only passed 72% pagerank, then it would always pass less pagerank than a regular link, which would contradict what Matt said.
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
-
Bing & Yahoo Traffic
Traffic to my three sites from Bing and Yahoo has been declining over the past year. Meanwhile traffic from Google has been increasing. A year ago Bing and Yahoo brought in 34% of my traffic. Now it's only 19%. What can I do to optimise specifically for Bing/Yahoo? I have Webmaster tools. Or could it be that my customers (largely aged 60+) are moving over to Google? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | WTH0 -
Training - How Google Crawls & Indexes Websites
Hi Does anyone know of any online training resources/webinars/training UK based that will cover the following for SEO: Why monitoring how search engines crawl and index content is important and how this can improve your SEO performance Using Google advanced operators to evaluate website indexation How to use log file data to gain insight into how search engines crawl and index content Techniques to control how search engines crawl and index content How search engines deal with JavaScript, common frameworks and SEO considerations I'm trying to develop my technical knowledge - I have always been more focused on content/KWD research/optimisation. Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Fred Google Update & Ecommerce Sites
Hi I've seen a couple areas of our site drop in average rankings for some areas since the 'Fred' update. We don't have ads on our site, but I'm wondering if it's 'thin' content - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/ We are an ecommerce site and we have some content on our category pages - which is a bit more generic about the section/products within that section - but how can it not be if it's a category page with products on? I am working on adding topic based content/user guides etc to be more helpful for customers, but I'd love some advice on generating traffic to category pages. Is it better to rank these other topic/user guide pages instead of the category page & then hope the customer clicks through to products? Advice welcome 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Https & Google Updated Guidelines
Hi We have https on aspects of the site which users directly interact with, such as login, basket page. But we don't have https across the whole site. In light of Google adding it to their guidelines - is this something we need to put into action? Also same question on the Accessibility point Ensure that your pages are useful for readers with visual impairments, for example, by testing usability with a screen-reader. Are we going to be penalised if these are not added to our site? Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
301'ing old (2000), high PR, high pages indexed domain
Hi, I have an old (2000), very high PR, 20M+ pages indexed by goog domain which... got adsense banned. The domain has taken a few hits over the years from penguin/panda, but come out pretty well compared to many competitors. The problem is it was adsense banned in the big adsense acct ban of 2012 for invalid activity. No, I still have no idea what the issue was. I'd like to start using a new domain if I can safely get goog to pass the PR & indexing love so I can run adsense & Adx. What are your initial thoughts? Am I out of my mind to try?
Algorithm Updates | | comfortsteve1 -
301 redirects
Hi, we have an old site hosted by company A. We rank for certain terms in google for certain brands and products. Now we have developed a new website on a new domain hosted by Company B. If we are 301'ing at brand/product/page level from old to new, who is it that should perform this job? Is it Company A or B, old or new? And does the physical website need to remain hosted for the 301 to work and for our SEO ranks on the old site to not fall apart? Company A think we can do an excel mapping doc for each link from old site to new. Hand file to Company A and they host this file (not the actual website) then we transfer old domain to Company A as well. Then the 301s will work fine. Yet Company B think we should continue hosting with Company A, keep the old physical site live and put the 301s in place. They say if the 301 link has content behind it then it will help or not take the chance of having the SEO affected? Who is right? Do you need the old website to remain live once 301s in place or can this 301 config file hosted on a domain be all we need to do? Any other ideas welcomed. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | YNWA0 -
SERP's & Search Engine Differences
Hey, I recently modified my pages to conform more closely to the "A" page rankings for MOZ's on-page report card but saw declines in my keyword rankings. They keywords in question appear in my title tag, description, one image alt tag, either an h1 or h2 tag, and 4 times throughout the text of the document. I don't think MOZ would recommend these changes if it was seen as stuffing - is there any other reason why my rankings might have dropped by 1-4 positions? Also, does anyone know of a good article/book for Yahoo/Bing SEO? My Yahoo & Bing rankings are far below Google's in most cases. Any help would be appreciated! -Michael
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
Google Dropped 3,000+ Pages due to 301 Moved !! Freaking Out !!
We may be the only people stupid enough to accidentally prevent the google bot from indexing our site. In our htaccess file someone recently wrote the following statement RewriteEngine On
Algorithm Updates | | David_C
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301] Its almost funny because it was a rewrite that rewrites back to itself... We found in webmaster tools that the site was not able to be indexed by the google bot due to not detecting the robots.txt file. We didn't have one before as we didn't really have much that needed to be excluded. However we have added one now for kicks really. The robots.txt file though was never the problem with regard to the bot accessing the site. Rather it was the rewrite statement above that was blocking it. We tested the site not knowing what the deal was so we went under webmaster tools then health and then selected "Fetch as Google" to have the website. This was our way of manually requesting the site be re-indexed so we could see what was happening. After doing so we clicked on status and it provided the following: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 250
Content-Type: text/html
Location: http://www.mystie.com/
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
MS-Author-Via: MS-FP/4.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 02:27:49 GMT
Connection: close <title>301 Moved Permanently</title> Moved Permanently The document has moved here. We changed the screwed up rewrite mistake in the htaccess file that found its way in there but now our issue is that all of our pages have been severely penalized with regard to where they are now ranking compared to just before the indecent. We are essentially freaking out because we don't know the real time consequences of this and if or how long it will take for the certain pages to regain their prior ranks. Typical pages when down anywhere between 9-40 positions on high volume search terms. So to say the least our company is already discussing the possibilities of fairly large layoffs based on what we anticipate with regard to the drop in traffic. This sucks because this is peoples lives but then again a business must make money and if you sell less you have to cut the overhead and the easiest one is payroll. I'm on a team with three other people that I work with to keep the SEO side up to snuff as much as we can and we sell high ticket items so the potential effects if Google doesn't restore matters could be significant. My question is what would you guys do? Is there any way we can contact Google about such a matter? If you can I've never seen such a thing. I'm sure the pages that are missing from the index now might make their way back in but what will there rank look like next time and with that type of rewrite has it permanently effected every page site wide, including those that are still in the index but severely effected by the index. Would love to see things bounce back quick but I don't know what to expect and neither do my counterparts. Thanks for any speculation, suggestions or insights of any kind!!!0