301 Redirect Issue

[diglet]

Hi

I wonder whether you can help me. I have a few error pages coming up on my website and had been told to just do a 301 redirect which will cover any error at all (even typing errors of webpages) and point it back to my homepage.

Is this the correct practise or should I customise a 404 error page. Would prefer to just do a 301 as I have a few sites but don't want to do anything which may cause my website problems.

Thanks for your help.


Mark

[Colin Evans]

A 301 redirect tells the search engines that the page has moved permanently so you don't lose your rankings, it is normally used when you change the filename (e.g. the page slug of a blog post).

301 redirects are usually done on a page by page basis. You can use it to redirect non existent pages (i.e. pages you've deleted) but if the page you redirect to does not have the same text as the original, you'll lose the rankings anyway.

If the pages never existed in the first place, I'd suggest using a custom 404 error page.

[diglet]

Thanks for your help Colin.

I came across this article:

301 404 Error Page Redirect for SEO - McAnerin International Inc.

It is a fairly old article but caused me concern over how the search engines would view a 301 redirect. Not sure how relevant it still is.

Mark

[Colin Evans]

A 301 redirect tells the search engines that a page had moved permanently... don't use it on a page which never existed. A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect and can cause problems with search engines. Here's an article which explains it:

The Rundown on 301 and 302 Redirects