Redirect 301 has an impact on SEO and like all SEO parameters, you need to get up to speed!
Natural referencing has always depended on good practices, and the “quality” filters implemented in algorithms in recent years are a constant reminder of this.
The basic rules of the 301:
- Matt Cutt, Google’s former SEO communication manager, has long and cleverly maintained an artistic vagueness , claiming that 301 redirects lead to a loss equal to that of an ordinary internal link (read video below)…
no more and no less.
That is to say, virtually up to 15% of the PR - 302 redirects do not pass PageRank.
This is because, by their nature, 302 redirects are temporary and therefore dealt with specifically by search engines. - Migrations to HTTPS result in a more or less noticeable loss of PageRank.
This is because of the large number of 301 redirects that this migration requires.
Needs of the most classic redirects.
Coders and webmasters who program website redesigns should carefully consider URL redirects for each case:
- Complete overhaul
- Moving an entire site to a new NDD
- Management of expired product pages
- Resumption of the site’s architecture.
I regularly receive questions from developers who are aware of SEO because they fear the consequences of 301 on the indexing and positioning of sites concerned by these rules… with good reason.
Hesitant site owners
Because of the significant risk of traffic loss, many site owners ultimately choose
- not to modify anything and maintain “exotic” URLs… as a lesser evil.
- postpone the migration of their site or its transition to HTTPS
The new rules of 3XX redirection
Google officially communicates
In recent months, Google has been working to reduce the problems and disadvantages associated with redirects — especially when it comes to switching to HTTPS—,.
- In February, John Mueller, an analyst at Google, officially announcedthat the 301 and 302 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS did not lead to the loss of PageRank.
This announcement was widely seen as an incentive from Google to switch web portals from http to the https protocol.
- Gary Illyes reminded SEO professionals that for Google, no matter which redirect method you use: 301, 302 or 307, the engine will be able to process them and that they will transmit all the PageRank acquired.
- The same Gary Illyes later confirmed this announcement on Twitter , this time claiming that redirects were no longer losing PageRank at all.
As a result of this change, are redirects easier to manage?
Yes and no.
While these are welcome changes from Google, risks and consequences remain that extend far beyond PageRank.
- Frustrating user experience in case of 404
- Copy and paste interpretation
- Indexing distorted by bots
… We will come back to this in another article.