301 Not Allowed...Other Solutions?
-
A client's site where both the www. and non-www. versions are both being indexed. The non-www. version have has roughly 1000 or so links where the www. version has over twice as much pointing back to the site. In addition, the www. version has higher domain authority.
Their programmer has suggested that they can't implement 301's permanent redirects across their site for a few reasons.
My question is, what would be the best alternative to block/redirect the non-www. version from being indexed yet still pass link-juice?
-
Hey James - I am curious as to why you think a 'canonical tag' wouldn't be a "long term fix"?
-
Thanks for the responses everyone. Everyone seems to be in agreement that a '301' is the proper course of action and should be explained that way.
I just have never run into a developer opposing the idea. So, thanks again for the feedback!
-
1st of all if the developer says he won't use the 301 then he's one very strange developer it's the basic of frontend development. But that being as it is, 301 is the best and most viable option but you do have a few other:
- tell GWT your prefered domain.
- have the devloper make a dynamic rel canonical, something like this (in php)
' ?>
in the above situation he of cause would have to make a function called checkURL to test for if the url begins with http://www and returns the right formatted version. and tell GWT what domain you prefer.
But again the only right way is a 301 and it's ridiculously simple to make.
-
If you properly communicate why 301 Redirects are the only proper solution, and you continue to run up against a dev who makes up pie in the sky technical "reasons" why they can't, then the question is whether they respect you enough, put enough value in your view, recommendation.
Setting that aside, the canonical tag, coupled with going into Google Webmaster Tools and setting the www version as the preferred version will help, but as has been pointed out, not in anything close to resembling an ideal way.
For long term sanity, I highly recommend you explore why you're getting the resistence. Is it because the dev feels threatened, or doesn't want to do the work? Setting up server-wide 301 Redirects is NOT that difficult or time consuming for anyone who knows what they're doing. So you may want to provide them links to the "how-to" for their particular server configuration.
If they are lazy, you'll need to find a way to show the decision maker(s) that failing to implement them is costing the company revenue.
-
My Advice is to make a deck/ business case for the programmer show him the problems with having two versions of the website indexed. I have encountered a few developers who are not really in tune with the whole issues around duplicate content and SEO. I think the best idea is to act on the same page, show the developer some respect, show him the design is good but then also educate him about SEO.
If you do a cononical tag, sorry to say but it is not going to be a long term fix, it will just be a short term fix.
Try and push for the 301's.
-
I have never encountered a developer who resisted using a redirect for the non-www URLs to the www form. If you have access to the server, the change should be able to be made.
If you decide not to use a 301,use a canonical tag to identify the correct version of the page. I would also use both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools to indicate which URL format you wish to use.
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
-
301 redirect with DNS?
Quick question. Is it possible to 301 redirect a non-www to www. (properly in terms of SEO) with DNS (C Name, A name, or other) ..have searched around and found conflicting information. Would like to know a definite answer. I usually implement all 301 redirects with htaccess. However have a client situation where we only have access to the CMS, but which does have DNS settings. thanks in advance, Greg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GregDixson0 -
How long does Google take to completely authorise 301 redirect?
Will 301 redirect will have immediate impact once the website or that redirected link got indexed? We have recently redirected few links in the process of link reclamation and ranking dropped few days later. Every link we claimed is related to our topic (matched in content and URL) and they have good DA. Even though why it has happened? What are the general rank dropping factors in the process of link reclamation? Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
HTTPS 301 Redirect Question
Hi, I've just migrated our previous site (siteA) to our new url (siteB) and I've setup 301 redirects from the old url (siteA) to the new (siteB). However, the old url operated on https and users who try to go to the old url with https (https://siteA.com) receive a message that the server cannot be reached, while the users who go to http://siteA.com are redirected to siteB. Is there a way to 301 redirect https traffic? Also, from an SEO perspective if the site and all the references on Google search are https://siteA.com does a 301 redirect of http pass the domain authority, etc. or is https required? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | opstart0 -
New site started ranking, lost ground after 301...?
Hi everyone. So we decided to re-brand a website starting with a fresh domain and fresh website (new everything). The first 4 weeks the site was performing really well and started bringing organic traffic for several targeted keywords (small amounts, but something). Around 5 weeks later, we decided to perform a 301 Redirect from an older site we had that really hadn't changed since 2007. As soon as we performed the 301, we started loosing ground on the keywords that were starting to perform. I may help to mention that we were targeting different keywords on the new site, versus the keywords/industry that were targeted on the older site... because we were focusing on another but similar industry. Now, 10 weeks later we are still not showing up for the keywords that we were starting to make headway on in the first four weeks of starting.... any ideas why? suggestions? The 301's were performed properly. We verified them, and we check Google WMT for any additional ones that may still be out there, but try to fix them as soon as possible. We have grown the site from just a few pages to over 60+ pages in the last 2 months with unique and fresh content targetting those keywords... Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | co.mc0 -
Should /node/ URLs be 301 redirect to Clean URLs
Hi All! We are in the process of migrating to Drupal and I know that I want to block any instance of /node/ URLs with my robots.txt file to prevent search engines from indexing them. My question is, should we set 301 redirects on the /node/ versions of the URLs to redirect to their corresponding "clean" URL, or should the robots.txt blocking and canonical link element be enough? My gut tells me to ask for the 301 redirects, but I just want to hear additional opinions. Thank you! MS
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MargaritaS0 -
Redirect 301 or Canonical.
Hello all, I have a page with a long post title and url path name (more than 70 caracters and 115). This page has many visits but I am changing the SEO website structure according to SEOMOz and forums guidelines so: I WILL CREATE A DUPLICATE PAGE WITH THE SAME INFO. This issue has been marked as an issue in the SEO tools, for long names>70 and url path names>115 My question is which option should I use and you would recommend me? 1. OPTION 1: Ideally I would like to keep the old post, so I should use the canonical tag, but my main concern is if the search engines in terms of SEO, even the canonical has been done, will penalise my SEO as there is still a post with bad SEO optimising, or if this is not the case because I already used the canonical. 2. OPTION 2: Eliminate the post and redirection 301 to the new page to keep the juice. I would prefer option 1, as I keep both post and page, but only if searchengines do not penalise my SEO as they detect a long post name and url path name. Thank you verty much, Antonio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aalcocer20030 -
301 - should I redirect entire domain or page for page?
Hi, We recently enabled a 301 on our domain from our old website to our new website. On the advice of fellow mozzer's we copied the old site exactly to the new domain, then did the 301 so that the sites are identical. Question is, should we be doing the 301 as a whole domain redirect, i.e. www.oldsite.com is now > www.newsite.com, or individually setting each page, i.e. www.oldsite.com/page1 is now www.newsite.com/page1 etc for each page in our site? Remembering that both old and new sites (for now) are identical copies. Also we set the 301 about 5 days ago and have verified its working but haven't seen a single change in rank either from the old site or new - is this because Google hasn't likely re-indexed yet? Thanks, Anthony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grenadi0 -
301 Redirect using rewrite rule in .htaccess
Hi guys, I have these types of URLs with the format below that are seen as duplicate contents http://www.mysite.com/index.php?a=11&b=15&d=3&c=1 I wanted to permanently redirect them to my homepage. I am thinking if this is possible in .htaccess using rewrite conditions? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trigun0