Redirects
URL redirection is a process put in place to forward site visitors to an alternative page when the page they are looking to view is no longer live on the site. Redirects may be implemented for migration purposes, as well as for site re-architecture and when pages naturally expire. They can also be used to consolidate ranking signals. Our SEO Office Hours notes below cover the different redirection types and explore how Google understands these.
Further reading: The ABCs of HTTP Status Codes
Google Can Process HTTPS Migrations Implemented With 302 Redirects
Even though it is recommended to use 301 redirects where possible for site migrations, John explained that Google often sees the wrong types of redirects implemented and has adapted to try and handle this.
Rather Than Redirecting Temporary Pages, Encourage Users to Link to More Permanent Pages
If you have a page that will only be live for a short amount of time, instead of trying to consolidate link equity through redirects, John recommends encouraging users to link to more permanent pages on your site like category pages.
Redirect to an Equivalent Version When Consolidating Country Versions of a Site
If consolidating different country versions of a site, John recommends treating this as a migration and redirecting to an equivalent version e.g. redirecting the Austrian and Swiss versions of a site into one main German version. However, you cannot specify to Google that they shouldn’t show a site in particular countries.
Nofollow X-Robots-Tag Wouldn’t Stop Google Following a Redirect
A nofollow X-Robots-Tag wouldn’t stop Google from following a server-side redirect, as Google wouldn’t even look at the content of the page so there would be no links to follow anyway.
GSC URL Inspection Tool Shows Target URL When Redirected Page is Entered
GSC’s URL Inspection Tool shows the target page when you enter a redirected URL. John admitted that this could cause confusion when performing a Live Test of the page.
Use Redirects Rather Than Orphaning an Old Page Before a Site Migration
When implementing a site migration, redirect old pages as soon as possible rather than removing internal links to them (creating orphan pages) to try and encourage Google to drop them from the index.
Legal Interstitials Which Redirect Users May Block Google
If you have a legal interstitial, such as an age gate, which redirect a user to a different page and set a cookie, Google will not be able to crawl and index the content. You can use an HTML div overlayed on the page, or use JavaScript to load the interstitial so Google can still see the normal content in the HTML. If you need to redirect a user to a different page, then you could create a different page with content which doesn’t need the legal approval.
Do Not Use URL Removal Tool for Redirected URLs
The URL removal tool does not affect indexing, only what is shown in search, and won’t speed up the migration of pages to a new URL. If you use the URL removal tool to remove redirected URLs from Google’s index, then the new pages may not show up until Google has had time to process the redirects.
When Splitting a Category Page Into Two New Ones, Redirect to One of the New URLs & Update Internal Linking
When splitting a category page into two separate pages, John recommends redirecting the old URL to one of the new pages and then updating internal linking normally within your website’s structure.
Google Can Process JavaScript Redirects as Long as it Can Crawl Them
JavaScript redirects don’t usually cause any problems for Google as long as it can crawl them, and they are treated as regular redirects. Make sure these redirects aren’t disallowed, however, as Google won’t be able to process them.