301 - A good idea?

parasitus84

parasitus84

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Hi,

I have two sites. One of them is doing pretty well and the other one is quite fresh. I need to redirect ONE URL from the old site to the new one (affiliate link issue). Will a 301 redirect of a single url be a good idea? I don't want to loose any rankings on my old site.

Thanks!
 
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Would this ensure a proper 301 redirect:



# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Redirect 301 /PATH_TO_REDIRECT NEW_LOCATION_URI

or is there anysthing else I should add in .htaccess? It's all about one single url.

Thanks!
 
I dont know, I use PHP for redirect

PHP: 
<?php
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
    Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" ); 
?>
 
The thing is that if you redirect, it will damage both for duplicate content.

Just build a new site and point the affiliate link through the second site.

If you are sure you want to redirect, then I highly suggest using the clean php redirect rather than using a 301 redirect, which is still an ' error ' redirect, just like a 404, 501 or any other...an error still reads in your search results as a ' damaged ' or ' incomplete ' page, dropping your ranking.

What people are getting feedback and link pull from is the periodic quick cycles that the well-fare condition bots are pulling due to the search engines pinging your site often to see if the error is corrected or not and giving a touch of activity, until they hit the limit and give you a perm. damaged status and sandbox you.

Beware of this is something that could happen to you.
 
Orbit143 said:
I dont know, I use PHP for redirect

PHP: 
<?php
    Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
    Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" ); 
?>
Click to expand...

You don't even have to put the first line, as the Location call is what pulls it. Calling the 301 will lock it into perm. 301 status and risk causing damage and de-indexing to the original domain, which the OP stated he didn't want to lose rank on.
 
aftershock2020 said:
You don't even have to put the first line, as the Location call is what pulls it. Calling the 301 will lock it into perm. 301 status and risk causing damage and de-indexing to the original domain, which the OP stated he didn't want to lose rank on.
Click to expand...

That is incorrect, failure to force a http response code through either the HTTP/1.1 header or in the location call itself will result in php issuing a 302 redirect by default, not a 301.

301 is not en "error" redirect whatsoever, and you are not avoiding this "error" by redirecting via PHP, instead what you will find is that most people are confusing a domain level redirect from htaccess with a single page level redirect from php.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.header.php
 
Last edited:
A lot of information out there. Thank you for the great info.
 
So according to what bobred said a single url 301 redirect should be done from php?

I have some very interesting results to share. The url/page has been 302 redirected for a while now. It was an instant result and it hasn't destroyed my rankings so far on the old page so I decided to go for 302. BUT!! Today the rankings from the old page dropped and the new page went straight to number 1! As said before, I used a 302 redirect. Did Google consider it as permanent (301) as I haden't taken it off for a long time? What should I do now to keep it this way (good results for this one url on new site and the rest stays on the old site)?

I'm speaking about two separate websites with unique content each. I want to redirect ONE of the urls from the old to the new site.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
parasitus84 said:
So according to what bobred said a single url 301 redirect should be done from php?
Click to expand...

You can do it through htacces or php, whichever you prefer... Just be aware that php will use a 302 redirect by default unless you specifically force the 301 using code similar to what Orbit143 posted.

I have some very interesting results to share. The url/page has been 302 redirected for a while now. It was an instant result and it hasn't destroyed my rankings so far on the old page so I decided to go for 302. BUT!! Today the rankings from the old page dropped and the new page went straight to number 1! As said before, I used a 302 redirect. Did Google consider it as permanent (301) as I haden't taken it off for a long time? What should I do now to keep it this way (good results for this one url on new site and the rest stays on the old site)?
Click to expand...

Very interesting! I've never used a long term 302 before but you could well be right in that google is now considering it a 301. You seem to have achieved the desired results with your current 302 so to be honest i would keep that in place as it is, no sense in messing with something that is working fine :)
 
Going for php would be a good idea. I don't think this will hamper PR any way.
 
seems good but cant say your both sites can get damaged so be very careful.
 
bobred said:
That is incorrect, failure to force a http response code through either the HTTP/1.1 header or in the location call itself will result in php issuing a 302 redirect by default, not a 301.

301 is not en "error" redirect whatsoever, and you are not avoiding this "error" by redirecting via PHP, instead what you will find is that most people are confusing a domain level redirect from htaccess with a single page level redirect from php.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.header.php
Click to expand...

I stand corrected on that, as I did some research on the matter and see that in php 5, it does work the way you've stated.

Nice cover, however, none of my standing code from php 4 that I have reads the 302 redirect, as the http line wasn't in the code.

It does have the additional line now, as that 302 error is still an error none the less and I don't want it there. Whether it shows or not, I don't want to risk it showing up in my later testing.

Learned something new there. I appreciate that point.
 
Last edited:
I did what you are talking about and it killed one of my blogs. lost traffic and everything. Maybe there is a right way to do it but IDK...
 
KeyzDT said:
I did what you are talking about and it killed one of my blogs. lost traffic and everything. Maybe there is a right way to do it but IDK...
Click to expand...

That's tough luck, man...hate to hear it tanked.

It is dangerous due to many factors. Have to be careful with it.
 
KeyzDT said:
I did what you are talking about and it killed one of my blogs. lost traffic and everything. Maybe there is a right way to do it but IDK...
Click to expand...

What exactly did you do?
 
bobred said:
You seem to have achieved the desired results with your current 302 so to be honest i would keep that in place as it is, no sense in messing with something that is working fine :)
Click to expand...

It's been only one day so it's difficult to say whether it'll work.
 
parasitus84 said:
What exactly did you do?
Click to expand...

I had 2 blogs one was underperforming so I just redirected the domain to my one doing good to feed it a little bit more link traffic and it ended it up knocking it from #3 for the keyword I targeted into oblivion. lost most of my targeted traffic and everything.
 
301 shouldn't affect you negatively, Matt Cutts has some videos on this, says it's fine
 
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