Title:

301 Redirect - The Search engine optimization method to relabel or move files or folders

Number Of Words:

1703

Summary:

In the following paragraphs I'll discuss page redirection techniques, the things that work and things to avoid.

Key phrases:

page redirect,redirect,page relabel,relabel,website,web,site,site,automatic robot,index,htaccess,301,301 redirect,404,meta redirect,meta refresh,java redirect

Body Building:

In the following paragraphs I'll discuss page redirection techniques, the things that work and things to avoid.

What's page redirection and why would you need to utilize it?

Let us say you relabel a webpage in your website, for reasons uknown. Possibly you made the decision to update your whole naming convention, possibly you made the decision to restructure your website and want to maneuver pages into different folders, or else you just recognized that you're missing valuable key phrases.

Let’s elaborate a little around the key phrases problem, as it is a part of your internet search engine ranking success.

Let us say the page under consideration is all about personalized USB drives and also you referred to it as page1.htm. Then you definitely read some Search engine optimization (Seo) articles and also you discovered that some search engines like google use words in the file title as search key phrases. The next time you perform a Search, have a look in the results, most may have words in the file title (within the URL section) bolded, denoting a keyword match. Your USB drives page will certainly benefit if named something similar to custom_usb_drives.htm rather.

Now you re-named your page, you simply produced a symphony of issues on your own, for the customers as well as for your situation in internet search engine results.

Connecting issues:

You'll have to point every link in your site towards the new page title. If your internet site is small, it should not be any large deal, but when your internet site is large, you'll inevitably get some things wrong, mainly failing to remember a hyperlink or two. This can lead to site visitors obtaining the dreaded “404 page not found” error when hitting your links, robots (also termed as spiders or bots) staying away from you, etc. Also, if you're heavily depending on site visitors from search engines like google, on the other hand, people will receive a “404 page not found error”.

Let’s make use of the previous example, for any very long time your page1.htm was listed in major search engines like google. If a person types “custom usb drives” inside a internet search engine box, your page turns up around the first search engine results screen. That's fantastic, only when someone clicks the hyperlink, they'll be pointed to page1.htm, to not custom_usb_drives.htm, because page one may be the one out of the search engine’s index. It will require time, sometimes several weeks, prior to the search engines like google update their indexes together with your new page title.

Lost Page Ranking (PR) issues:

Google created a proprietary formula that assigns a webpage Rank (PR) to each page on the internet. PR is really a number from one to ten (10 being the perfect) and will probably be a representation of methods helpful and popular confirmed page is. PR is affected by many people factors, among the crucial ones being Link Recognition. Link Recognition is really a representation of the number of “quality” or “relevant” sites connect to your page. Without engaging in an excessive amount of detail, it's progressively difficult and time intensive to attain a higher PR for the pages, particularly if you do not have a very unique website with exceptional and highly desired content. If you're basically operating an industrial site, inside a competitive market (for example selling custom top quality USB drives, as with our example), it takes considerable time and effort to construct a great page PR.

Whenever you relabel a webpage and discard that old page, additionally you discard the PR from the page. Your re-named page is going to be seen as an completely new page, with PR.

What's the solution?

I'll begin by enumerating a few of the techniques utilized by the non-started.

Not suggested solution 1: Duplicate content.

First factor that most likely is available in you thoughts are: well, why can’t you simply duplicate the page and let character take its course. Quite simply, you'll have two identical pages, one named page1.htm and something custom_usb_drives.htm. This provides you a chance to update all links and also the search engines like google will ultimately index the brand new page.

This option would be not viable because search engines like google will penalize you quite badly, ‘thinking’ that you're attempting to scam them using the ‘duplicate content’ technique.

Not suggested solution 2: Custom error message.

You can produce a custom error page. However, you'll lose ratings around the next internet search engine update because the file will seem to be non-existent. As talked about above, it may be a while prior to the page using the new title is going to be indexed and can come in people’s searches. Also, your internet site site visitors is going to be frustrated because they are in possession of to search using your site to obtain the preferred information.

Not suggested solution 3: An HTML Meta redirect.

You can implement a so known as Meta refresh inside a blank or personalized page which has the title from the old page (within our example, page1.htm) that points towards the new page. The redirect could be instant, or postponed with a predetermine period of time. The postponed redirect has got the advantage that you could place an additional message, for example “please remember that the page you're searching for transformed location….. etc., etc…. you'll be rerouted instantly towards the new location”

Previously, it was most likely the most famous technique.

Without engaging in the mechanics from the Meta redirect, that is essentially a META tag statement you ad for your HEADER section, realize that you will find also Java Script techniques that achieve similar results.

What's bad relating to this is this fact is really a technique frequently utilized by spammers to trick search engines like google and it ought to be prevented, unless of course the page is within a piece of the site that is not indexed (also called spidered or indexed). Internet search engine spammers produce a page that's enhanced for several key phrases and phrases - it always doesn't have real content. The page will be acquired by some search engines like google, however when a customer clicks the internet search engine entry, they're rerouted to a different site, frequently unrelated. Most search engines like google have filters to identify this. By using this type of internet search engine deceptiveness will discover a site eventually banned or punished by major gamers for example Google.

The suggested redirect strategy - 301 Redirect

A 301 redirect is easily the most efficient, customer friendly, robot (spider, crawler) friendly and internet search engine friendly solution around for internet sites which are located on servers running Apache. If you're not sure, seek advice from your host company.

A 301 redirect is simply a group of instructions you type to your .htaccess file.

Whenever a customer (whether human or robot) demands an internet page via any means, your internet server inspections for any .htaccess file. The .htaccess file consists of specific instructions for several demands, including security, redirection issues and just how to deal with certain errors.

The code "301" is construed as "moved permanently". Following the code, the Link to the missing or re-named page is noted, then an area, then then the brand new location or file title.

To begin with, you will need to discover the .htaccess file within the root directory of where all of your webpages are saved. If there's numberhtaccess file there, you may create one with Notepad or perhaps a similar application. Make certain whenever you title the file that you simply make sure to place the "." at the outset of the file title. This file doesn't have tail extension.

Some hosting companies offer redirect services through their “control panels”, so it's not necessary to do low-level changes around the .htaccess file itself. Rather, they offer a simple to use interface with this. Seek advice from your host company to determine exactly what the optimal way to carry out a 301 redirect is within your situation. I'll continue the content using the barebones solution.

If there's b .htaccess file already around with lines of code present, be cautious to not change any existing line unless of course you understand the functions from the file.

Scroll lower past all of the existing code, leave a line space, then produce a new line that follows this situation:

redirect 301 /folder/page1.htm http://world wide web.you.com/folder/custom_usb_drives.htm

It's as simple as that. Save the file, upload it back to your internet and try it out by keying in that old address towards the page you've transformed. You ought to be instantly and effortlessly moved towards the new location.

Notes: Don't add "http://world wide web" to part one from the statement - just place the path in the top degree of your website towards the page. Also make sure that you leave just one space between these components:

redirect 301 (the instruction the page has moved)

/folder/page1.htm (the initial folder path and file title)

http://world wide web.you.com/folder/custom_usb_drives.htm (new path and file title)

Exactly the same format is applicable not just to re-named files, but additionally to files moved to a new location.

The 301 redirect may be the most secure method to preserve your ratings. Around the next indexing (moving, spidering), the internet search engine robot will obey the rule suggested for your .htaccess file and index the brand new page title whenever a link or its internal database attempts to access that old page. Within the next update (again, this might take several weeks), that old file title and path is going to be dropped and changed using the brand new one. Many times you see alternating old/new file names throughout the transition period, together with some possible fluctuations in ratings as things settle. Don't stress, this really is normal.

Let's say your internet site is located on the Microsoft IIS server rather?

If you can get the server, do that: In internet services manager, right click the file or folder you want to redirect. Choose radio stations entitled "a redirection to some URL". Go into the redirection page, check "The precise url joined above" and also the "A lasting redirection with this resource". Click "Apply".

If you don't have the server, request your host to suggest you in to the right direction.

To conclude, the very best and also the most transparent way (to both human and robot customers) to relabel and move files in your site, while protecting your internet search engine ranks may be the 301 redirect.