The need to include redirect in server access files is something many webmasters and site managers can come across. Including the correct text in order to inform visitors that the page or site they are looking for has moved is a relatively easy process. However, if search engine spiders and rankings are part of your web presence concern, there a few pointers that should be considered before altering your .htaccess file.
Discuss Business.com and redirects at WebProWorld.
Which Redirect Do You Use?
A thread started by moderator bhartzer on WebProWorld discusses this very issue, using what happened to business.com as an example. It appears as if Google penalized business.com for using the wrong type of redirect to point people away from the business.com URL to the www.business.com address. Because of their mistake, “Business.com has a PR0 on their home page and is not in Google’s index anymore.” b’s statement can be confirmed by clicking here and here.
For the purposes of search engines, there are two types of redirects that should be used, the “301 permanent” and the “302 temporary”. Each one designates if the file the spider is looking for has been temporarily moved or if it was a permanent move. According to bhartzer, business.com was using a “HTTP/1.1302ObjectMoved redirect”. The reason they were penalized was become their move was permanent and their redirect didn’t reflect that.
This means that when you are planning to move files on your webserver, you need to correctly inform the search engine spider where and what type of move this was. The wrong information can lead to being banned by search engines, a predicament that can be hard for a site to recover from, rankings-wise.
Another moderator, jestep, reported a similar incident about a client using the wrong redirect and getting their site banned by Google: “A client of mine had a site banned. Same thing, used a 302 redirect. They had no idea, and the redirect was completely legit, but Google still saw it as spam. I’ve emailed Google several times, and they said they will review the site again, but the site still hasn’t been readmitted into the index.”
By using the wrong redirect, in this case a 302, Google and others can construe this as spamming because of duplicate content issues. An article that appeared in murdok, by Shari Thurow explains this issue very well. According to Shari, if you are going to be managing multiple domain names for one website, “always place a 301 redirect on the domains that you do not wish to promote in the search engines.”
There are a few methods that can be utilized when wanting to implement a 301 redirect properly. The first, most common method is the process of adding a couple of text lines of your .htaccess file. This is done to communicate to the spider that your site files aren’t located at this address. An example taken from Randy at HighRankings.com indicates the necessary text to include in the file: Redirect 301 / http://www.yourdomain.com/.
Another method is to employ the mod_rewrite technique. These changes, which are also added to the .htaccess file, appear like this:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]
Be sure to change the yourdomain to your website’s actual domain name, otherwise, these changes will not work. Although, the technique that Randy prefers is this one, “First, and best IMO, is via BIND/Local DNS. If you have the ability to edit your local DNS records you could simply add a record to that to handle it seamlessly. If you don’t have access to your local DNS you might ask your hosting company to set it up for you. Most will. Most do as a default these days. If you can edit the local DNS for the domain itself, simply add a CNAME record with the non-www version pointing to the www version.”
Because you are responsible for the content of the domain you own, using the wrong type of redirect is not a viable excuse for search engines. They will still penalize you if you are suspected of using duplicate content. jestep finishes this thought with a bang by saying, “Point being, do the right redirect in the first place. Google doesn’t have any sympathy for ignorance.”
Update: Since this thread was started, it has become one of WPW’s more popular topics. Responses concerning redirects and getting banned have been coming in quite regularly. Concerning what actually happened to Business.com, SEO expert Dan Thies offered these thoughts:
“Google has a problem with handling 302 redirects, period. Business.com isn’t banned or penalized, they’re just returning the wrong response.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
