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
-
Confused about repeated occurences of URL/essayorg/topic/ showing up as 404 errors in our site logs
Working on a Wordpress website, https://thedoctorwithin.comScanning the site’s 404 errors, I’m seeing a lot of searches for URL/essayorg/topic, coming from Bingbot, as well as other spiders (Google, OpensiteExlorer). We get at least 200 of these irrelevant requests per week. Seems like each topic that follows /essayorg/ is unique. Some include typos: /dissitation/Haven't done a verification to make sure the spiders are who they say they are, yet.Almost seems like there are many links ‘in the wild’ intended for Essay.Org that are being directed towards the site I’m working on.I've considered redirecting any requests for URL/essayorg/ to our sitemap… figuring that might encourage further spidering of actual site content. Is redirection to our sitemap xml file a good idea, or might doing so have unintended consequences? Interested in suggestions about why this might be occurring. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | linkjuiced0 -
On our site by mistake some wrong links were entered and google crawled them. We have fixed those links. But they still show up in Not Found Errors. Should we just mark them as fixed? Or what is the best way to deal with them?
Some parameter was not sent. So the link was read as : null/city, null/country instead cityname/city
Technical SEO | | Lybrate06060 -
Why my site is not ranking for any of the keywords?
We have a site for Property management software, we have done everything like set proper Title and descriptions, heading tags, robots tag is also ok, set schema and its ok with Google webmaster too also we are doing Social media promotion. can you please check our website and tell me what is the problem??
Technical SEO | | rootwaysinc0 -
Why Canonical error?
I just got my SEOMOZ run and it says I have a CANONICAL ERROR: Scorpio Earrings - 7mm Stud - Sterling Silver http://www.astrojewelry.com/jewelry/scorpio-the-scorpion-earrings-30502.htm I'm not sure why--I only changed the <title>tag--not the URL.</span></p> <p><span class="truncated sub-url" title="http://www.astrojewelry.com/jewelry/scorpio-the-scorpion-earrings-30502.htm">Why would this generate a canonical error?</span></p> <p><span class="truncated sub-url" title="http://www.astrojewelry.com/jewelry/scorpio-the-scorpion-earrings-30502.htm">Kathleen</span></p> <p><span class="truncated sub-url" title="http://www.astrojewelry.com/jewelry/scorpio-the-scorpion-earrings-30502.htm">astrojewelry.com</span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p></title>
Technical SEO | | spkcp1110 -
I noticed all my SEOed sites are getting attacked constantly by viruses. I do wordpress sites. Does anyone have a good recommendation to protect my clients sites? thanks
We have tried all different kinds of security plugins but none seem to work long term.
Technical SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
404 errors and what to do
Hi, I am fairly new to the whole seo thing and am still getting confused a bit as to what to do to sort things out. I've checked the help pages but I cannot seem to find the issue. I've just signed up so my site is crawled for the first time and coming up with more then a 1000 404 errors. I checked a couple of the links via the report I downloaded and it does indeed show a 404 error but when I check the pages all seems to work fine. I did find one issue where an image if clicked on twice was pointing to an url with 'title= at the end. Now I have tried to get of that but couldn't find anything wrong. I'm a bit lost as to where to start!
Technical SEO | | junglefrog0 -
If I redirect my WordPress blog to my main site, will it help my main site's SEO?
I have separate sites for my blog and main website. I'd like to link them in a way that enables the blog to boost my main site's SEO. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks in advance for any advice...
Technical SEO | | matt-145670 -
How long does it take for customized Google Site Search to show results from pdf files?
The site in question is http://www.ejmh.eu I am pretty unsatisfied with the results I am getting from the Site Search provided by Google. We have over 160 pdf files in this subfolder: http://www.ejmh.eu/mellekletek The files are the digital versions of articles. When I search for content in those pdf files, Google does not show results. It does show results from older pages, dating back 1-2 years but it is certainly not showing anything from pdf files that I have just put up 3 weeks ago. My questions: If I place a Google Search on a site, does it not automatically display results from ALL the content in the root domain? Is there any correlation between how the Site Search is indexing the files and how Google is indexing the urls in general? Should I just wait and see whether site search performance improves or should I switch to another Search software like Zoom Search? It is vital to have a proper, high-quality search functioning on that site in the very near future. What are your experiences? Any tips are greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Lauroca0