Do internal PHP redirects affect page rank?

[jamiejohnson37]

I know this topic has been answered in many forms many times, however I have a specific question that I was unable to find in any other threads.

We have an old content page that we want to re-direct to a new content page:

example.com/topic/11.php
example.com/topic/13.php

We are using one of the following commands in the header to re-direct (not sure which one):

<?php
header( 'Location: http://www.example.com/new_page.html' ) ;
?>

or

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="5; url=http://www.example.com/html/tags.cfm">

Our assistant web admin insists that the NEW page & possibly our entire URL will be penalized by Google if we do this and will drop in page rank or be dropped from the index altogether.

I made the case that this is pure nonsense and that, at the most, the old page would drop from its current rank of 3, but that the new content page would eventually rise.

I would like some third party feedback before our next discussion.

Thanks,

J

[edited by: tedster at 3:07 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2009]
[edit reason] switch to example.com [/edit]

[tedster]

Hello Jamie, and welcome to the forums.

First, some clarity on the wording. "Page Rank" and "ranking" are not the same thing. I believe you are talking about how well the page ranks, rather than Page Rank [webmasterworld.com] - Google's patented name for one of their ranking factors.

The answer is that either of those redirect approaches can cause the content involved to loose ranking, possibly even for a long time. This is because Google (and all search engines) rank the URL itself, not the content itself. If the URL (the web address) of any bit of content must change, then the best practice technically is to use a 301 [permanent] redirect from the old address to the new one.

This will transfer most of the backlink power (both internal and external) to the new address rather quickly, with possibly a short period before the new URL takes over in the search index and the previous URL is dropped.

Any other approach to moving content to a new URL has a much greater possibility of problems. All search engines, including Google, try to accommodate websites that use other practices - after all, they want to give their end users good results. However, only the 301 works predictably to any degree and it is the best practice recommended by Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

[Asia_Expat]

jamiejohnson37, is there any reason you can't use the following format to redirect individual pages (placed right at the top of the old page)?...

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.example.com/allthegoodstuffishere/goodstuff.html" );
?>

... You can check that the server is producing the desired 301 header by using the header checker in the control panel here at WebmasterWorld.

[TheMadScientist]

I would go with Asia_Expat's suggestion or use Mod_Rewrite... Your suggested PHP redirect header( 'Location: http://www.example.com/new_page.html' ) ; is a '302 undefined' = bad plan.

Also, from what I've read, Google handles undelayed meta refreshes as 301's, but otherwise handles them as 302's and also recommends using a proper 301 redirect rather than the meta refresh. Yours has a 5 second delay = bad plan.

Sounds like you got some fairly good advice from the assistant to me.

I made the case that this is pure nonsense and that, at the most, the old page would drop from its current rank of 3, but that the new content page would eventually rise.

Sure, the new page could eventually rise, but 301s pass link weight, and 302s don't (afaik) so it depends on what you time frame for eventually is... If it's soon after Google and other SEs find the redirects and credit the inbound links to the new locations then you need to use Mod_Rewrite or Asia_Expat's idea. If your time frame for eventually is after you contact every one who links to any of your pages, ask (and get them to) change the URL in the link (which of course effects the age of the link), or go and build new links to all the redirected pages, then you can use what you posted...

Personally, I'd use a proper 301 and save some time, effort and headaches.

BTW: if using 301s, make sure they aren't 'stacked' or they won't have the desired results either.

You might owe the assistant a cup o' coffee for raising enough of an issue for you to post, because they were 'essentially' correct... A 302 redirect = bad idea.

[jamiejohnson37]

So as I understand it, as long as we use a 301 re-direct the new page wont drop in the rankings (not "page rank" :), but the old page of course will.

Thank you everyone for your informative replies. I appreciate it.

- J

[tedster]

Let's make that "won't drop for long" - just to be safe. Every situation can have it's quirks.

[jamiejohnson37]

Of course. Actually it is new content and a new page so it will have to rise to where the old page was. The main point that I wanted to clarify that the page & our entire domain would not be de-indexed or penalized for an common industry practice.

Thanks,

Jamie