Hi, expert seo professionals,

What is the difference when I use a "Robots - no index" meta tag to avoid duplicate content and when I use "301 redirect" script to redirect to a page I designate but at the same time and in effect it should have the effect of avoiding duplicate content?

In my very shallow knowledge of seo, 301 redirect is even better as it would generate any unintended traffic to a page I designate for visitors.

Thanks in advance.

A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that the page has moved and tells them where to go instead.  This is the best way to relocate a page, as the page retains some if not all of its original ranking, and there is no duplication.

No index is actually better for just hiding pages from the SEs.  If you try to use it for moving a page, the new location will have to rebuild it's ranking.

Hi, Steven,

So in other words, 301 redirect serves both the purposes of avoiding duplication (hiding a page from SE) and achieving some if not all its PR, and moreover gets all redirected traffic.

When there is any replacement webpage with new URL (eg. change from html to php extension, or change of keywords in URL, which I did have), I should always resort to 301 redirect.

In conclusion, In any event and at all times, there is practically NO point of using No Index command!

Correct me if I am wrong.

Many thanks.

There are reasons to use no-index.  If I'm testing new pages and don't want them to show up yet in the SERPs (especially if they're nearly duplicates of existing pages), I normally will put them in another directory with a no-index on the whole directory.  Also any utility programs that customers don't need to access.

On my binoware page, on the item pages, I use GETs (like: www.binoware.com/binoculars/40018707.php?spec) to show the specifications on a pair of binocs.  All the same info is on the page, but the specification info shows in the bottom instead of the description.  I do this because otherwise it would show as a duplicate even though it's really the same address (with the ?spec at the end to give the page more info)

So there are reasons to use no-index (including many I haven't listed), but moving a page isn't really one of them.

i'm also having the same opinion, 301 permanent redirection is used, when server is moved or the file renaming has occured. While robots.txt specially emphasize crawler to not index that particular item as mentioned in txt file.

Steven_A_S wrote:

A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that the page has moved and tells them where to go instead.  This is the best way to relocate a page, as the page retains some if not all of its original ranking, and there is no duplication.

No index is actually better for just hiding pages from the SEs.  If you try to use it for moving a page, the new location will have to rebuild it's ranking.

Why would someone want to hide a page from SE's?

If it's worth creating - isn't it worth indexing?

In my example above on my binoware site, when a user clicks on one of the links for a pair of binoculars, they get the link without the "?spec" at the end.  When they click on the Specifications tab, it goes to a link with the "?spec".  It's the same information, but a different part of the page is shown.  In this case I hide the link with the "?spec" to avoid duplication.

Another good reason is that not all pages you make are necessarily for general consumption.  If you have a page or pages for administrating your web site, you don't really want to advertise it.

Think of it in terms of a mall.  There are a lot of doorways with the store name on a big flashy signs meant for the customer to go through, but there are plain simple doors (usually down small hallways) and loading docks without those signs that are meant just for employee use.  The general public isn't meant to go through it, so there's no need to advertise it.

Steven_A_S wrote:

Think of it in terms of a mall.  There are a lot of doorways with the store name on a big flashy signs meant for the customer to go through, but there are plain simple doors (usually down small hallways) and loading docks without those signs that are meant just for employee use.  The general public isn't meant to go through it, so there's no need to advertise it.

Excellent analogy!