302 Redirect For Google Traffic For 1 Specific Keyphrase?

[TommyAJ]

Hello:

Google has suddenly decided my website should rank highly for a keyphrase that is, at best, only marginally related to it's actual content. As a result, everyone arriving at the site by searching for that keyphrase is simply leaving right away. However, I think I can segway them into the page by producing a small amount of content that IS related to that keyphrase and then leading them to the main site from there.

However, to do that, I need to be able to redirect people arriving from Google (none of the other SE's are doing this!) for JUST that (2 word) phrase. In that regard, I've done a bit of digging, and came up with the following example:

RewriteCond %{http_referer} search[^?]\?([^&]+&)*(as_q地s_epq妁如宅a安hat)=([^&+%]+(\+吒%2b吒%20))blue(\+吒%2b吒%20)widgets(\+吒%2b吒%20)?
RewriteRule index.html http://www.mydomain.com/blue-widgets [R=302,L]

While I do understand what it's (supposed) to do, I'm pretty confused by the search string part:

search[^?]\?([^&]+&)*(as_q地s_epq妁如宅a安hat)=([^&+%]+(\+吒%2b吒%20))blue(\+吒%2b吒%20)widgets(\+吒%2b吒%20)?

Onbiously, it is looking for "blue widgets" as the keyphrase, but what is all the rest doing? (And, if anyone knows, can you say if it's correctly formatted?)

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Tommy.

[lucy24]

You've got a lot of red herrings there. Presumably "blue widgets" is wrong for the page, no matter how the person got there, so you don't need to specify google and you don't need the rest of the search string. All you need is

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} blue(\+|\%2[b0])+widgets? [NC]

G### search strings are a black mystery to ordinary humans. It depends on the searcher's UA, on their optional settings, on their relationship with google (signed in or not, and so on) ...

In general, redirects should be 301 rather than 302. Unless it genuinely is a temporary move.

(And you have no idea how alarming your question looked in "Traditional Chinese", which was my browser's first guess!)

[g1smd]

Showing Google a page of content and redirecting visitors to a different URL may get you into trouble.

[lucy24]

Well, now you say so, after walking me through the process of doing the identical thing myself ;)

In my case, it's not really google's fault that the searchers can neither spell nor read. But I constrained it to the countries where the error is most likely to occur. In Tommy's case it may depend on what those misguided visitors are getting shown as their snippet text. Is it their error or google's?

And then there's the page I wouldn't dream of redirecting, whose title is "{keyword} is your friend" while the second sentence of the meta description-- the one used in the search snippet-- says "this page is not about {keyword} except as it relates to {other keyword}". If that isn't enough to warn the visitor, the page itself will scare them away :)

[g1smd]

When the circumstances are different, a slightly different solution may be called for.

Google often bangs on about "webmaster intent"; they're looking to see if you're attempting to deceive searchers in some way. If you're clearly not, then there's no problem. If there's a possibility that Google may think you are, then you need to be very careful.

[TommyAJ]

Thanks Lucy... what you said makes sense; I'll try that.

For what it's worth, I actually don't know what visitors are seeing when they click through via that keyword search in Google. They're not coming from the country I'm in; I've tried to find the listing in Google by changing the geographic location, but can't locate it. So the only reason I know they are coming via that keyphrase is that Google Analytics itself is reporting that fact.

Regards,
Tommy.

[lucy24]

Doesn't Analytics say which specific google they're coming from? If you can't find it, look at your raw logs. In general, people coming from other countries will show up as google.ca, google.it, google.no and so on. And you can put that into your browser's address bar and recreate the search. Or, preferably, someone else's browser at a different IP.

Oi! How come google.in and google.pk have a cute picture with Gumby while google.ca and vanilla google.com just have some boring text about the space lab? :(

[TommyAJ]

Doesn't Analytics say which specific google they're coming from? If you can't find it, look at your raw logs. In general, people coming from other countries will show up as google.ca, google.it, google.no and so on. And you can put that into your browser's address bar and recreate the search. Or, preferably, someone else's browser at a different IP.

Hi Lucy,

Yes, it does say which Google. I've made several attempts to locate the listing, all without success. I haven't checked the raw logs though (didn't even think of it, to be honest :-)

Btw, the code you suggested in your OP doesn't seem to do the job. I might try just "widgets", which is still unique enough to redirect people with. With that in mind, does the following code looks correct?

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} widgets? [NC] 

Tommy.

[g1smd]

That line of code translates to "If the referrer contains widget or widgets anywhere within it and in any case upper or lower". Is that what you want?

[TommyAJ]

That line of code translates to "If the referrer contains widget or widgets anywhere within it and in any case upper or lower". Is that what you want?

Yep, that's pretty much it.