I know that I learned Redirects = bad = banned from Google. I just read a message thread where someone else thought the same thing. Someone asked where we learned this, since it isn't true all the time. Where did we learn this?

If you thought the same thing, please help me find out where, by listing links to the sources?

In my case, I only remembered that I learned it from articles read through Site Reference, so, to start this off, I'll list the links to the articles that I just rediscovered, after searching to remember where I did learn this. Please add to my list, so the experts can clarify redirects for us. Thanks.

http://www.site-reference.com/articles/ … Yahoo.html
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/ … mming.html
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/ … oogle.html
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/ … Again.html
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/ … -1999.html

Just a heads up about information and the internet

there is a lot of ill-informed and poorly educated content on the internet.

Sometimes it is there to mislead
sometimes the author has a product to sell that needs you to believe a lie
sometimes it's there for the sake of content

Before making a decision based on what you read, you need to know you are making an informed choice. FOR SEO/SEM.IM - this forum is a great place

in the case of redirects, the truth was told, but not the whole truth. the truth was spun into a lie

this happens all the time

Be aware

I just briefly skimmed over a couple of those articles and it seems they a referring to pages that redirect.
To me I take this to mean a meta refresh, I could be wrong but I think this is what was meant.
A 301 or 302 redirect I find hard to believe there would be negative effects if not overused i.e. hundreds of domains pointing to the same url.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Dan

Northie wrote:

Just a heads up about information and the internet

there is a lot of ill-informed and poorly educated content on the internet.

Sometimes it is there to mislead
sometimes the author has a product to sell that needs you to believe a lie
sometimes it's there for the sake of content

Before making a decision based on what you read, you need to know you are making an informed choice. FOR SEO/SEM.IM - this forum is a great place

in the case of redirects, the truth was told, but not the whole truth. the truth was spun into a lie

this happens all the time

Be aware

Northie,
Of course! The problem is, the first time you learn of something, you don't know enough about it to discern if it's true or not, and the first thing you learn about something, is often the foundation of what you assume until you learn otherwise. There now that I made that perfectly foggy, let me give an example to clear it up.

I discover the famous widget in an article online, that's talking about widgets fitting into shoes for day-long comfort on the soles of your feet. Got a picture of what a widget is? Sticking with you? Now picture considering that as what a widget is until two years later, when you read that a widget is sold in cotton white or formal attire. Screws up the entire image now.

The first thing I ever learned about redirects was "redirects bad." Now that I read that they aren't necessarily bad, I've got two years of references saying they are, and only a vague concept of two exceptions -- 301s and 302s. All I know now is "redirect bad, except for 301s, 302s, and ...." well, other stuff you were trying to explain in another thread. I gotta go back to find out what I got wrong, to understand why it is wrong, and what the heck is bad, good or completely nuetral about redirects.

I know I apparently either assumed something I shouldn't have assumed, or I got some bad info. I'm stuck on this bad info, until I can sort out which parts were true, which parts weren't, and that huge chunk of stuff I simply am clueless about, since I've ignored a whole bunch of info over the last two years, when it told me the opposite of what I first learned.

dann wrote:

I just briefly skimmed over a couple of those articles and it seems they a referring to pages that redirect.
To me I take this to mean a meta refresh, I could be wrong but I think this is what was meant.
A 301 or 302 redirect I find hard to believe there would be negative effects if not overused i.e. hundreds of domains pointing to the same url.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Dan

Dan,
Ummm, OK?!
1.) I've also been assuming redirects are "page redirects." Can something else be redirected that I've not known yet?
2.) I have no idea what a "meta refresh" is.
3.) By "novice" I really mean "novice" -- those of us still getting the hang of producing content online, and barely pulling it off.

I hope this makes your day -- I cannot correct you. You're are so above my head, that I need binoculars to see you. LOL

Then again, this goes back to my original problem. You sure sound like you know what you're talking about, so I'm apt to agree with you! Really hard to figure out truth from wrong concepts, if you're just starting to learn a subject.

Yes, that is my picture in the dictionary under "gullible."

dann wrote:

I just briefly skimmed over a couple of those articles and it seems they a referring to pages that redirect.
To me I take this to mean a meta refresh, I could be wrong but I think this is what was meant.
A 301 or 302 redirect I find hard to believe there would be negative effects if not overused i.e. hundreds of domains pointing to the same url.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Dan

purely from a content  / SEO stand point:

301s good
302s bad
meta bad
js bad

All redirects have their time and place.

I only ever use 301s and 302s (in applicable places) because I heavily use server side scripting that can manipulate the headers

atwhatcost wrote:

dann wrote:

I just briefly skimmed over a couple of those articles and it seems they a referring to pages that redirect.
To me I take this to mean a meta refresh, I could be wrong but I think this is what was meant.
A 301 or 302 redirect I find hard to believe there would be negative effects if not overused i.e. hundreds of domains pointing to the same url.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Dan

Dan,
Ummm, OK?!
1.) I've also been assuming redirects are "page redirects." Can something else be redirected that I've not known yet?
2.) I have no idea what a "meta refresh" is.
3.) By "novice" I really mean "novice" -- those of us still getting the hang of producing content online, and barely pulling it off.

I hope this makes your day -- I cannot correct you. You're are so above my head, that I need binoculars to see you. LOL

Then again, this goes back to my original problem. You sure sound like you know what you're talking about, so I'm apt to agree with you! Really hard to figure out truth from wrong concepts, if you're just starting to learn a subject.

Yes, that is my picture in the dictionary under "gullible."

OK, all redirects are page redirects
there are many methods of redirecting

a meta refresh is a line of code you put in your <head> section of your page with a <meta> tag and looks something like

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://webdesign.about.com">

the two means how many seconds,
the url is where to go

Why this is bad (from an SEO view):
The SEs read only the code they are sent, they do not process javascript and the only follow links
This type of redirect will not give the SE any new information.
What it will do is tell the SE that you don't want the user on this page, so the SE won't bother to index/rank the page

a 301 or 302 redirect invlves manipulating the HTTP header

the HTTP header is extra information that is sent by the server to the user agent (brower or spider). This information is not contained in the source code and must be implemented by server side scripting, eg php, asp or in the apache .htaccess file. If you do not have access to these technologies you can't use this type of redirect

why is a 301 good and a 302 bad?
301 means moved permenantly, 302 means moved temporarily. pooly set up 302s lead spiders to think that duplicate pages are around. duplicate pages get filtered out of the index. 301s are not treated this way by SEs

301 and 302 relates to the HTTP server codes, as found here:http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html

Javascript

never done it, don't know how to do it, sure it can be done, but just don't care
It's bad for the same reasons that the meta refresh is bad.

So, why maight you wnat to use these 'bad' redirects?

that's a usibility and functionality question. If you need a page to automatically refresh every 30 seconds - use a meta refresh

If you do form processing in javascript and want to send the user to a specific page based on form input values - use javascript

If you are changing servers or have server trouble you may use a 302 redirect to a 'sorry, back soon' page.

Additionally - link love will only propagate through a redirect if it's a 301 redirect

Good? Bad? Hmm...

I´d rather say, how can Google determine that your redirect was good (white hat) or bad (black hat)... Google doesn´t make the internet rules, but it rules much of the internet... Don´t expect the spider robots to be just or fair or something...

The sole possibility of getting banned would make me avoiding redirects wherever possible.

I even hesitate to use them to disguise affiliate links. I know I might lose a percentage of sales this way. But really - it´s difficult to make a decision about...

If possible at all, I would avoid using redirects. Too dangerous, after all.

Torsten wrote:

I´d rather say, how can Google determine that your redirect was good (white hat) or bad (black hat)...

Easily, but looking at the status codes the server sends.
If it is a 302 and the content on the landing page (the one the spider got to) is the same as the content on the redirect page (target page) then Google will apply duplicate content filters

spiders will draw the same conclusion if the content is the same when the spider comes across a meta refresh or js redirect, IF the spider chooses to follow it.

If the status is 301, no problem - this means permanent redirect, the content on the landing page will never be seen by an intenet user* and the spider will take the landing page out of the positive index and put it int he negative index, go to the target page and put that in it's positive index

*If you remove the 301 users will see the page, but it will take a while for the SEs to come back to it as they won't bother checking the page for the status code as it's in the negative index.

Torsten wrote:

Google doesn´t make the internet rules, but it rules much of the internet... Don´t expect the spider robots to be just or fair or something...

no, they make their own rules.
If you want to be listed in google, you follow their rules

Torsten wrote:

The sole possibility of getting banned would make me avoiding redirects wherever possible.

I even hesitate to use them to disguise affiliate links. I know I might lose a percentage of sales this way. But really - it´s difficult to make a decision about...

If possible at all, I would avoid using redirects. Too dangerous, after all.

If you've not have to use them, it's not going to be a problem for you.

masking affiliate links doesn't come into it - the page you send the visitor too (that does the redirect) never had any content on it and isn't in any of the indexes.

If you want to be nice to your affiliated retailer, send it through a 301 - this will allow the link love to flow.

you could always put a rel='nofollow' attribute on the link, then it wouldn't matter.

Communicate with the engines and they will love you for it, just don't lie to them



now then,

what was all this positive and negative index stuff all about?

really they're just lables I made up to describe the indexes that google (and other engines) keep.
I'm not talking about the supplementals. Nor am I talking about banned pages (but there could be an overlap)

Simple - the SE needs a list of pages not to display, or a list of pages not to go to during it's indexing. As the spiders find urls they are checked against both indexes. If it's in the positive one, there'll be a cache of the page to compare this crawl to. If it's in the negative index the SE can save time by not bothering to visit the page and do all the processing again just to finds that it wasn't worth it. pages in this index very rarely get re-spidered, that's why it takes a bit of time to get back into the positive index

Okay, I should explain myself a little bit better.
I build websites mainly for corporations and small businesses. As Google has done I register the company name as the url, makes sense right?
Then someone comes along and registers .org, .info, .net,  underscores or dashes or whatever.
So I try to cover all bases and use a 301 redirect at the domain level to send all requests to .com.
A 302 (temporary) redirect will accomplish the same exact process. As of this moment the SE spiders still access the 301s as well as the 302s. Some websites are hosted on older MS servers that do not support a 301 .asp is my only option and 302 is the response they send.
So what is my point? I have not seen any evidence whatsoever that SEs care if they get a 301 or 302 response.
As I said in my earlier post pages that redirect.
For example, go with me here: you click on a Google search result for starting a home based business, you seem to find exactly what you were looking for, you click on the result, the page has a meta refresh of zero and you end up on one of them clickbank pages that you have to scroll down a few minutes before you find out how you can become a millionaire overnight.
This is what I mean by pages that redirect.
If you have renamed or moved a file/folder and you use a 301 or 302 redirect it's legit. No worries. You won't get penalized.
The search engines(all of them) are trying to give the most relevant results. Google does not care(that much) if it gets a 301 or a 302. It will still continue to spider both, however it will only index one page.
To make a long story short (LOL) being consistent is the key here. And I am not talking about rewriting long urls, just page redirects. I see absolutely no reason for a page redirect. What is the point?? And that is exactly what the article point out.
Sorry for the long post. Venting frustration on "blackhatters".
Dan

Why would I redirect a page, or even a site?

Simple, I have a new page or a whole new site that replaces the old one.
maybe I restructure my site and the same content is found under a different URL

To avoid losing traffic I use a redirect, a 301 to be specific

If a page that has been indexed is to be redirected you must use a 301 or else you will be 'filtered' out of the results pages. If the content is very similar you will have more filters applied.

there is plenty of evidence to suggest this.
Suggested reading
- planet ocean
- jerry west's newsletter
- google webmaster guidelines

It boils down to this - if you're not careful a 302 will lead to duplicate content filters, a 301 will not. meta refresh and js redirects are unprofessional and can be penalised if mis-used

Can I just butt in here?

about 302's.
If northie remembers, i had a similar problem and it was him who discovered that it was indeed a 302 redirect.
This was created by the host when i had multiple domains pointing to the same website.

Now, I had a quick panic over the "302's BAD" thing, but at the time there was nothing I could do except watch for my rankings going down the toilet.
Eventually though, I bought up a resellers account elsewhere and pointed all my other domain at seperate sets of webspace. I then created a htaccess for each that would 301 redirect to my main site.

I HAD been using MYDOMAIN.com, which was well ranked, but switched to MYDOMAIN.co.uk.

I had .com ranked 6th for my keywords. the .co.uk came about 12th.

Since doing this, my .co.uk now ranks 6th and the .com doesnt appear in the index.

So is it really THAT bad?
I didnt lose anything with a 302 and I didnt gain anything with a 301. infact, i lost a place (the 12th) with the 301 and about 300 indexed pages.

griffinsbridge wrote:

So is it really THAT bad?
I didnt lose anything with a 302 and I didnt gain anything with a 301. infact, i lost a place (the 12th) with the 301 and about 300 indexed pages.

It's my understanding that you could have lost both

the 301 will force the one site

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Northie wrote:

the 301 will force the one site

Not true. Sorry I have quite a few sites that still have the same page indexed twice with a 301 redirect. Redirects have been in place for months a few cases a year or more.
Slurp is the only one not guilty in my experiences.
Dan

OK, so just took two aspirins (seriously) after reading everything everyone wrote, and am now going to translate it into everything that I think I learned. Please correct or guide me to fuller truths, when I slip off the edge of understanding. (I feel like I’m gaining understanding at great frustration to my brain, but still, only have an inch of understanding to walk on.)

1.) If everything worked perfectly in the world, the very first domain name and hosting package were right on the money, and no one ever was sneaky around your site to get their site higher up on the good ole SERP, there would be absolutely no reason to ever redirect.

2.) Since observation 1 is never going to happen (although I'd be interested in knowing if anyone actually chose THE perfect web address and found the perfect host on their first try) redirects are both necessary and need to be done just right, or Goggle's bots will punish you with the vigor of a zealot, which means...

3.) 301 (permanent) good. 302 (temporary) bad. Metafresh always bad?! js (JavaScript?!) bad. (Although, I thought JavaScript was just another kind of language that can be used to make sites with psychedelic effects that make a small portion of Internet users psyched to watch, and annoys those of us who are just trying to access the site, minus the long winded – and I know long winded LOL – intro.)

4.) Oh, for clarification: Good = Google likes site page, if I do this, and Bad = Google ignores site page.

Now, the load of question I have –

1.) Why does someone want to refresh a page every few seconds or half minute? I would find that “get me out of here NOW” annoying.

2.) What’s link love?

3.)

The sole possibility of getting banned would make me avoiding redirects wherever possible.

What do you do when you find a better URL address; you end up with an address that reads like War and Peace; or you change hosting places?

4.)

I even hesitate to use them to disguise affiliate links. I know I might lose a percentage of sales this way. But really - it’s difficult to make a decision about...

I still need more activity on my sites to get into “affiliating,” but, why wouldn’t you simply have a link to have visitors go buy something from the places you’re working with?

5.) If the purpose of the 301 or 302 redirects is to get visitors to go to a newer page instantly, why would it have duplicate info on it? Why would it have any info on it other then the redirect?

7.) Why do spiders need to list pages that won’t be seen? And, why would a permanent redirect stop being a redirect?

I wish these were the only things I don't understand. Truth is, the rest is so far over my head, I'm guessing you guys are just debating it among yoursleves.

Don't mess with Northie folks... we're drinking/smoking buds today

Defend U North?? Yikes... almost like the Cult of PR in here.....

What some folks MAY be missing is th PROPER way (with Google at least) is as such

301 The page/site (permanent) to it's new location (removing the page/site of course.. don't leave it on the server)

Once that is cache'd (if ya want to be picky) do a Page Removal on it (twice cause results last 12 months while removal only lasts 6 months ..wierd)

Now...  it can take a month or so to stick.

Any problems along these lines means there are OTHER factors affecting U than the percieved non-passing of Love .. more research is required


Oh.. some one said they fell to 12th... this means little as SERPs are EVERFLUX... other considerations come into play than merely the 301s

and back to the party I go http://forums.site-reference.com/topic/ … r-a-Party/

I wrote an article on redirects a while ago:

Redirecting Your Way Out of Google

Ideally you never need to use redirects with most sites, but if you do happen to change pages or locations, then you need to use a 301.  Also, try to avoid having too many 301s for one page (pageA.html redirects to pageB.html which was changed to pageC.html, etc).  SE's will give up if they have to follow something too far (affiliate links would be subject to this). 

Redirects are mostly not needed with the rare exception of changing a page name, directory name, or a site redesign.  If you have to use a 301, expect that it will take time to be updated in the SE's depending on how important your site is to the engine.  If you are not considered very important, then it will take some time to see the updates (if ever).

Northie wrote:

Why would I redirect a page, or even a site?

Simple, I have a new page or a whole new site that replaces the old one.
maybe I restructure my site and the same content is found under a different URL

If it is the same content on a new page, why not use the same url. It's already indexed I assume. What's the need for a redirect?
If redirecting to a site

atwhatcost: A js redirect is purely blackhat for all intents and purposes. Used mainly for showing spiders different content than what a visitor will see. Search the internet for javascript redirect.
I did not mean to start a controversy here. I am just stating my experiences.
301 and 302 redirects send a header response to a page request, a meta or js redirect/refresh does not.
301 - 302 SAFE. Jeepers people are so afraid of offending Google these days!
Another myth I would wish to explore is passing PR through a 301 redirect. Permanent or temporary. TB update time, do you keep the PR the old page/url had?? Hmm. For me no.
Dan

Northie wrote:

griffinsbridge wrote:

So is it really THAT bad?
I didnt lose anything with a 302 and I didnt gain anything with a 301. infact, i lost a place (the 12th) with the 301 and about 300 indexed pages.

It's my understanding that you could have lost both

the 301 will force the one site

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Ah, never thought of that tbh. Was looking at the numbers I had rather than thinking about the future.
When you put it that way, Im actually more than glad ive done it know.

Ive done something else with 301's that sounds great in my head, but I'm feeling all giddy about wether its gonna work or not.

I have referral links that my members are putting all over the net.
its a simple format: http: mysite.com ?ref=someonesname
When someone clicks through that link, they trigger abit of script that records the referral and rewards them. Then, now this is me beauty, it does a php 301 header redirect to the homepage.

Im hoping google will now see all these hundreds/thousands of referral links as pure links to my homepage.
What dya think?

btw, whats a hand in the bush worth?

griffinsbridge wrote:

I have referral links that my members are putting all over the net.
its a simple format: http: mysite.com ?ref=someonesname
When someone clicks through that link, they trigger abit of script that records the referral and rewards them. Then, now this is me beauty, it does a php 301 header redirect to the homepage.

Im hoping google will now see all these hundreds/thousands of referral links as pure links to my homepage.
What dya think?

I do exactly the same, when i changed the default from 302 to 301 (about 2 weeks ago) I saw my back link count shoot up - link love for you

griffinsbridge wrote:

btw, whats a hand in the bush worth?

less than a head in the bush