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301 Redirects Good or Bad?

by pennyroll
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've had my site for around 4 years. When I started I had the dates in the post urls. Now I would like to improve optimization of keywords in the urls and get rid of the date stamp. It's built with Wordpress.

Whats the good and bad of 301 redirecting over 100 indexed posts?
#301 #bad #good #redirects
  • Profile picture of the author n7 Studios
    If you need to 301 redirect, then I'd use a plugin such as Redirection (WordPress › Redirection « WordPress Plugins). It's worked well for me with no SEO penalty or loss of traffic when I've had to change URLs (or sometimes even entire domains).

    Do you need to 301 redirect though - I'd be surprised if changing your permalink structure will give you a massive SEO optimisation increase. I'd first run through your Posts with a basic SEO tool to check that your keywords are in the URL, title and content.
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    • Profile picture of the author pennyroll
      Thanks for the advice, if I don't have to redirect, I would prefer not. I have one quick follow up question. What if 2 of 3 are true, such as, the keywords are in the title and content, but not the url, or any other combination 2 of 3, would that be worth redirecting?
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  • Profile picture of the author HyperV Networks
    This is true but if for some reason one of your tier legs get's hit by a google algorithm update..... You will be able to remove that leg quick and easy by removing that 301 redirect page. Of course there is allot of info on how to detect a loss of PR, SERP, ext in one of your tier legs. Yet again, another reason why you should not build more than 15-25% of your links to your money site.

    But on the flip side of that, is that if your building quality back-links with quality content that is NOT keyword stuffed or spammy, you should be fine. Remember consitantly build your links with quality content and you SHOULD be fine in the SEO world.
    *not that I am an export or anything..lol
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  • Profile picture of the author VASEO
    Originally Posted by pennyroll View Post

    I've had my site for around 4 years. When I started I had the dates in the post urls. Now I would like to improve optimization of keywords in the urls and get rid of the date stamp. It's built with Wordpress.

    Whats the good and bad of 301 redirecting over 100 indexed posts?
    301 it is good if your site penalized by google panda / penguin, Even if it were ranking down, I think should consider carefully before making, I think you should keep and build a new domain, if it haven't problem
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Are you starting a new website? New domain?
      Just wondering. That would mean a lot.

      301 redirects were meant for what you are doing,
      but within reason.

      If your site is a blog built on WP, then whatever
      changes you do to make new and improved urls
      is going to really gum things for older posts.
      The whole structure of the blog will change.
      That's not good. Putting 301 redirects will not
      really solve anything.

      Yes, visitors like knowing what a url is about,
      but google is just fine using all types of
      differet urls.

      You would have to copy/rename all 100 posts. That's
      a daunting task. Unless you do some sort of global
      301, but that would be painful in its own right. All
      would be lost. Manually recreating 100 posts is not
      a good idea. I can't think of anyway not to have
      to recreate all 100 pages with new urls, then
      manually 301 the old 100.

      You have 3 choices. No 301s involved.
      1) (good) Change the url structure starting now, and gum
      stuff up. Everything will eventually work out. If not,
      make some good new posts. Bite the bullet, move on.
      2) (better) Leave the site as is. Make due. Minor annoyance
      with the date.
      3) (best) Start a fresh blog, new domain. Put a huge
      link to the new site, front and center of the main page,
      sidebar on all the rest, linking to the new site. It costs
      pennies a day. You could even install the new blog on
      the same domain, saving money. Then 301 the domain
      to that. Old blog left completely intact.

      Now you have 2 sites to backlink from.

      I would never gum up already indexed content.
      301 is not perfect.

      Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author pennyroll
      No, it hasn't had a problem. I think I am going to leave it alone.
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  • Profile picture of the author pennyroll
    Thanks for all the advice. I will leave this alone for now (no redirect). The site is the one in my sig file, Pennyroll. It's sort of my baby site and the last thing I want to do is mess it up. Thanks again.
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