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301 Redirects for SEO

Guest post by: Mark Brimm

Article Overview: Many still do not understand the impact of 301 Redirects or the proper time and place to use them. I hope to give an outline of when and where to use this often misunderstood technical issue within the larger "theory" of what is really just practical SEO common sense.

301 Redirects for SEO

The 301 is the redirect for a permanent move of A PAGE that is heavily linked to by a keyword phrase or via a mixed array of inbound linking. This means that the index page should be the only http location to be assigned a 301 response code ONLY if the inbound links are pointed at that index page. Ideally, each linked-to page should be given its own unique 301 redirect to the new url of the content in question.

I've seen first-hand what a little confusion on this issue can do when a client takes the reigns with 301 redirects without understanding them. Below is a list of the 3xx codes of note...

3xx Redirect Codes Established by the World Wide Web Consortium:

* 300 multiple choices (example: offering different language versions of same content)

* 301 moved permanently

* 302 found (originally temporary redirect, but now commonly used to specify redirection for unspecified reason)

* 303 see other (example: for results of cgi-scripts)

* 307 temporary redirect NOTE: All of these status codes require that the URL of the redirect target be given in the Location: header of the HTTP response. The 300 multiple choices will usually list all choices in the body of the message (passed on to the search engine spiders) and show the default choice in the Location: header.

Within the 3xx range, here are some of the status codes that are markedly different from the above redirects (not discussed here for reasons of focus and space):

* 304 not modified

* 305 use proxy

Here is how the code will be interpreted by search engine spider:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently

Location: http://www.oldsitehere.com/

Content-Type: text/html

Content-Length: 174

Moved

This page has moved to http://www.newsiteurlhere.com/.

When using any 3xx redirect, it is generally least troublesome and most effective to use the from-to response settings your server's host provides on the back end or to use an hta access file to assign these manually yourself. Both are essentially the same thing.

NEVER assume that by redirecting the old index page of an old domain to a new index of a new domain site that you are automatically redirecting all the lower level pages as well. This is incorrect and will, of course, result in loss of all of those precious inbound links to those moved landing pages. By redirecting each page individually, the inbound links are preserved and the link popularity and resul7ting keyword relevance passed on to the new url on the new site/domain.

For more information on how to properly use 301 Redirects in your specific case, readers are welcome to reserve a little hourly consulting phone time to discuss the unique considerations for your site(s). If you do not have technical expertise on staff who can take over redirect issues once they are identified, it's really best to have a highly skilled Search Engine Optimizer to talk to.

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Article Tags: analytics articles, search engine marketing articles, search engine marketing tips, seo articles, seo tips



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