I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
format to each thread.
I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
s=&threadid=6115", for example).
This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
site.
Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
I've heard that multiple redirects can be recognized by Google, to a
point, and I think two is within that point. It should be noted that
on a recent patent by Google (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=929) they
mention that 301 redirects are found by the crawlers, a database is
updated, then the targets crawled later. Another redirect will
obviously slow this process down.
Rather than throwing the entire site into the mix right away, I'd test
it out on a small portion and see how long it takes and maybe
implement the change in stages if possible.
> I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
> process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
> format to each thread.
> I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
> relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
> s=&threadid=6115", for example).
> This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> site.
> Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
Small multiple-redirects should not pose a problem to Googlebot as
long as it can fetch each page along the path (i.e. no robots.txt
exclusions, 404's, etc.). However, for this kind of permanent change,
do make sure that you're using 301 redirects to let us know that the
old URLs will not be coming back soon.
As with any large site restructuring, there may be some ranking
fluctuations as your url changes propagate through our systems.
However, after Googlebot has a chance to crawl of your old URLs (and
get 301-redirected to your new pages), it should be appropriately
passing PageRank and other signals on to the new pages. This process
might take just a little longer for double-redirected URLs than it
would for single-redirected URLs, but you might not even notice a
significant diafference between this and other URL restructurings that
you've set up.
But, as is often the case, JLH is here to provide sane, careful
advice. If you want to see how bad the URL-restructuring hiccough
will be--and if you can up a section of your site without affecting
the rest--you will be able to better weigh the costs and benefits of
making the change. Then you can come back here and speak with the
voice of experience, just like JLH. ;-)
> I've heard that multiple redirects can be recognized by Google, to a
> point, and I think two is within that point. It should be noted that
> on a recent patent by Google (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=929) they
> mention that 301 redirects are found by the crawlers, a database is
> updated, then the targets crawled later. Another redirect will
> obviously slow this process down.
> Rather than throwing the entire site into the mix right away, I'd test
> it out on a small portion and see how long it takes and maybe
> implement the change in stages if possible.
> On Dec 14, 8:48 am, robert paulson wrote:
> > I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
> > process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
> > format to each thread.
> > I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
> > relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
> > s=&threadid=6115", for example).
> > This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> > site.
> > Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
I think you might run into some issues with crawl and index speed as
John points out above.
I can say for sure that having 3 or 4 redirects before the page
resolves does and will cause issues.
I also learnt from a very learned guy that you might need to carefully
plan your redirect strategy - i.e. I wouldn't put them all live at
once if possible. Apply redirects to deeper less-crawled content first
and wait for these to be picked up before moving on to more popular
content.
> I've heard that multiple redirects can be recognized by Google, to a
> point, and I think two is within that point. It should be noted that
> on a recent patent by Google (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=929) they
> mention that 301 redirects are found by the crawlers, a database is
> updated, then the targets crawled later. Another redirect will
> obviously slow this process down.
> Rather than throwing the entire site into the mix right away, I'd test
> it out on a small portion and see how long it takes and maybe
> implement the change in stages if possible.
> On Dec 14, 8:48 am, robert paulson wrote:
> > I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
> > process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
> > format to each thread.
> > I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
> > relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
> > s=&threadid=6115", for example).
> > This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> > site.
> > Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
Yup, redirect only smaller chunks and try to avoid multiple redirects
in a chain. If you can't redirect from A to C without touching B you
need to develop a better algo, respectively use brighter tools.
Sebastian
> I think you might run into some issues with crawl and index speed as
> John points out above.
> I can say for sure that having 3 or 4 redirects before the page
> resolves does and will cause issues.
> I also learnt from a very learned guy that you might need to carefully
> plan your redirect strategy - i.e. I wouldn't put them all live at
> once if possible. Apply redirects to deeper less-crawled content first
> and wait for these to be picked up before moving on to more popular
> content.
> Best rgds
> Richard
> On Dec 14, 3:05 pm, JLH wrote:
> > Robert, interesting question.
> > I've heard that multiple redirects can be recognized by Google, to a
> > point, and I think two is within that point. It should be noted that
> > on a recent patent by Google (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=929) they
> > mention that 301 redirects are found by the crawlers, a database is
> > updated, then the targets crawled later. Another redirect will
> > obviously slow this process down.
> > Rather than throwing the entire site into the mix right away, I'd test
> > it out on a small portion and see how long it takes and maybe
> > implement the change in stages if possible.
> > On Dec 14, 8:48 am, robert paulson wrote:
> > > I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
> > > process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
> > > format to each thread.
> > > I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
> > > relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
> > > s=&threadid=6115", for example).
> > > This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> > > site.
> > > Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
> I think you might run into some issues with crawl and index speed as
> John points out above.
> I can say for sure that having 3 or 4 redirects before the page
> resolves does and will cause issues.
> I also learnt from a very learned guy that you might need to carefully
> plan your redirect strategy - i.e. I wouldn't put them all live at
> once if possible. Apply redirects to deeper less-crawled content first
> and wait for these to be picked up before moving on to more popular
> content.
> Best rgds
> Richard
> On Dec 14, 3:05 pm, JLH wrote:
> > Robert, interesting question.
> > I've heard that multiple redirects can be recognized by Google, to a
> > point, and I think two is within that point. It should be noted that
> > on a recent patent by Google (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=929) they
> > mention that 301 redirects are found by the crawlers, a database is
> > updated, then the targets crawled later. Another redirect will
> > obviously slow this process down.
> > Rather than throwing the entire site into the mix right away, I'd test
> > it out on a small portion and see how long it takes and maybe
> > implement the change in stages if possible.
> > On Dec 14, 8:48 am, robert paulson wrote:
> > > I'm in the process of upgrading our older forum software, and in the
> > > process will need to do some redirects because there's a new url path
> > > format to each thread.
> > > I also want to install some custom redirects that change the url to
> > > relevant text instead of meaningless numbers ("/showthread.php?
> > > s=&threadid=6115", for example).
> > > This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> > > site.
> > > Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
> This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> site.
Howdy,
Are any of these thousands of pages going to gain any ranking from
links on other web sites? If not, why let the search engines try to
index them in the first place and put them so far down the lists they
won't be found?
> Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
You probably already have indexing problems with the search engines
bailing out after chasing too many Next/Prev/Post/Reply type links. I
see many Blogs that end up being trap sites to burn excessive crawler
time.
> > This will result in the double-redirect of thousands of pages on the
> > site.
> Howdy,
> Are any of these thousands of pages going to gain any ranking from
> links on other web sites? If not, why let the search engines try to
> index them in the first place and put them so far down the lists they
> won't be found?
> > Will I run into indexing/deindexing problems if I do this?
> You probably already have indexing problems with the search engines
> bailing out after chasing too many Next/Prev/Post/Reply type links. I
> see many Blogs that end up being trap sites to burn excessive crawler
> time.
