Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I've never had to deal with domain 301 redirects or url removals. I have many similar type domains that I need to condense into one to remain in compliance with Google webmaster guidelines.
My dilemma is this. Does a 301 redirect of widgets.com --> widget.com mean that widgets.com doesn't exist? What I mean is, most websites that launch get more value the longer they have been on the web. Does the 301 redirect stunt that domain so that if you ever removed the 301, it would be starting at zero days on the internet from Googles perspective?
Secondly, I was considering just removing some of the urls completely from Google to help clean up their index of my domains. I'm considering doing this for some, not all. Is url removal from Google a stupid decision? Was I reading correctly that once a url removal has happened from Google, they cannot be indexed for 90 days? Will those removed urls be seen as suspicious from Google should I decide later to include them in Goolge at a later date? Part of me wants to allow some of my domains to exist in the other search engines without completely ditching their value.
I have some tough decisions to make here. I'd appreciate any help. My biggest worry is simply 301 redirecting domains and then having those domains having no history on the internet. If they would indicate to Google a history during the 301 redirect then it makes the decision a lot easier for me. Is a 301 domain redirect carries along with it some history/time online value, then I would be very happy. I wouldn't feel so much reservation about melding so many domains. I need to be a lot wiser when it comes to multiple domains, and it's a new challenge for me to grasp.
It is not a good idea to cloak a redirect just for Google. It can cause a severe long term penalty.
Once a 301 redirect is in place and spidered, the old url is automatically dropeed from the live index - so you won't need to do a URL removal request.
I need to understand what you meant by a cloak redirect. Can you possibly explain what you meant by that? Are you saying that removing a url from the Google index (adding in meta for googlebot to not index) is possibly grounds for a severe long term penalty? I'm very gunshy right now. I'm walking on egg shells right now, so I need to clarify.
I'm trying to decide with some of my domains, if it makes more sense to simply remove them from Google index and not have googlebot spider them, or is it better overall to 301 redirect them. I'm think a 301 redirect renders my domain deader than a doornail, which is why I'm trying to clarify if a domain that is 301 will continue to accumulate a history. I realize the value of history of a domain or it's length of time on the web.
You were suggesting that you might let other search engines see the original domains and not be redirected. That's cloaking - showing Google one thing and other user agents something else.
Another choice might be not to use any 301 redirects at all, but work with robots.txt disallow rules instead. You could build one combined domain just for Google and use robots.txt to keep out the other search engine spiders. Then use robots.txt to disallow just googlebot on all the other domains.
I feel like a newb asking this, but the 301 domain redirect for a new domain (no backlinks/pagerank) renders your domain useless for all intents and purposes. If a person types it by chance in their address bar, you would get their traffic. A tiny benefit from having that domain in the first place. The flip side is removing that url from Google bot so it doesn't get indexed and to Google, the domain doesn't exist.
Can I take an existing domain, have that domain removed from Google index, and not face some type of punishment for doing so? What I would be doing is saying... widgetsforrent.com is not good enough for Google based on their criteria, so I will not clog up their index. Instead, I will simply remove the url from their index and stop their bot from visiting my domain. Because there are other search engines that I can still receive traffic from, I in essence would be gaining more value than simply using that new domain as a 301 redirect. True? I'm so confused about what I can and cannot do, my head is spinning.
I'm not putting forward tricks or some type of manipulation. This is not my intent. I'm trying to do what's best for myself and my domains. I'm not talking about flooding the other search engines will 10 of the same domains. I just think I have new domains (no pr or backlinks) that are more useful as a website than as a 301 redirect. Do people not remove a domain from Google and still allow Yahoo and Bing to index/crawl their sites? I guess you would wonder why on earth anyone would do such as thing unless they have something up their sleeve, but I'm just pondering this scenario. Just because Google thinks something isn't right, doesn't mean that Bing does. If they have a different philosophy, then perhaps some of my domains are better suited for their search environment. Everyone in this world should have a choice.
I'm kind of wondering though, what "message" this would send or what my ultimate motives would be for not allow Google to index, but allowing Bing and Yahoo to index. It would however be nice to have that option without being penalized or judged. I'm an honest person and being considered dishonest or dishonorable is deeply troubling. Again, I'm sure the skeptics are thinking I must be working on some scam.
In summary, is there going to be long term damage from removing a url from Google and asking their bot not to crawl my site? If in a year I went to reindex that site, will I be treated differently? Will I be able to bring that site back into the Google index?
Why is a 301 redirect a better option than simply asking Google not to crawl my site? I cannot comprehend why the 301 would be a better option, but everyone is saying that I must or should. You guys know this better than I do that's for sure. So if 301 (new domain) = no value, but removing url from Google = some value, the honorable thing to do is to 301? Is that how this works?
If, as your other thread indicates, you simply have thin and/or duplicate content - that does not usually cause long-term trouble, once you remedy the situation. Really long term ranking trouble usually comes from getting devious with networks of sites -- using link farms to build PageRank, getting sneaky with javascript redirects, showing one thing to human visitors and another to googlebot.
