Multiple Redirection

Multiple redirection Affects Website Performance?

[Evercome Shathees]

I have launched Our alpha version (alpha.website) website earlier. then I have redirected to www.website/web. now I am planning to redirect to www.website. It will affetc site loading time and passing page ranks?

[lammert]

Hi Evercome Shathees,

Some time ago Matt Cutts from Google mentioned that every redirect has a slight dampening effect on the link juice distributed through that link. It is therefore better to reduce the number of redirects as much as possible.

You can find the discussion about this dampening of link power here:

301 Redirect Means "Some Loss of PageRank" - says Mr Cutts
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4097565.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[lucy24]

Is there any distinction between mechanical redirects and true redirects? (Sorry, I don't know the technical terms.) Like this:

If a user asks for

www.example.com/directory

and the site's preferred nameform is example.com, then getting them to

example.com/directory/

is two separate 301 redirects. (I just verified this in a neighboring forum with Live Headers.) And vice versa of course if the preferred name is with-www. Many site owners probably don't even realize that there are redirects involved. Plus the final rewrite that secretly appends "index.html" or whatever the filename is.

For g### purposes, does that "count" just as much as going from

example.com/directory/

to

example.com/otherplace/newname/

(what I would call a true redirect)?

[DeeCee]

Since you call it your alpha web-site, I assume that it will go away both from a user perspective and from a search engine perspective. (Except for the redirects that send users and engines to the right location.)

Hence losing juice is less of an issue, if any at all. Simply stop promoting and using the old web-site locations, and let Google and others learn over time, that all content has moved. Over time as Google rechecks the old content, the redirects will neither be necessary nor visible, and Google will forget about it all.

When Matt Cutts talks about the "cost of redirects", we are here talking about permanent redirects that users (or GoogleBot) would always see when bouncing around on your site. Like if Google kept finding links to old locations on your site, which then merely redirect to new. Kind of a small penalty for "bouncing" users around. Not the case for you, if I understand i correctly.

301 redirects are a natural thing, and how one "keep" link juice, when content moves. As long as the redirects always points to the same "new location", and old links are not weaved into the new content to be (re-)found again, it is simply part of teaching everyone where to go.

Just do not have "old" links on the new site, that merely bounces the user around to the new location.

[aakk9999]

If a user asks for

www.example.com/directory

and the site's preferred nameform is example.com, then

getting them to

example.com/directory/

is two separate 301 redirects.

@lucy24 Are you saying that you cannot get from www.example.com/directory to example.com/directory/ in one hit? This is not my understanding.
Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

[lucy24]

You don't notice it unless you are running Live Headers or similar. Of course if you code absolutely all redirects yourself, you can do them as a package. But if you are using apache's built-ins and/or stuff that your host optionally does on your behalf, then with/without www and directory-slash is each its own redirect.

That's why I wondered if g### treats all redirects alike. Now, I'm not big enough to get requests for nonexistent files-- or maybe, ahem, there are enough naturally occurring 404s that they can't have any doubt. But I do notice that whenever gwt checks for its validation file, there are two requests, one redirected and one not. I have to assume that it's asking for the with-and-without-www versions, and noting the fact that one of the two gets a redirect. (Being a robot, it can choose not to follow a redirect. Doesn't seem quite fair does it?)

[DeeCee]

Lucy24,

Google (and every other software that chooses to) do not have to follow 301s. It basically means "you cannot get what you want HERE. If you really want it, go THERE instead."

Notice that there are several reasons for Google's "non-reaction" to 301s, which will be apparent if you track log-files.

a) Google often has no reason to follow a 301, because it leads to a page that Google's bots have already lifted based on other links followed. In other words no reason to load it, because it is already indexed. Most cases are for this reason, in my experience. In other cases they are followed. (Google might have many other criteria.)

b) Google in my experience comes back to check old links with redirects again and again for a while, until it is sure that they are really permanent moves. In some cases it can of course be because it found the old link somewhere and hence is following it again, or because the old link is still present in an older indexed page. But in some cases I have noticed, it is merely a re-check. The latter will stop, once Google can be sure it is "really" permanent, which a 301 is supposed to be. (As opposed to a 302).
That then kills the old page off the indexes.

On the validation file checks: Since Google changed their webmaster tools to require you to register both versions (www and non-www) if you own them both, they would have to check both during re-validation of ownerships. But as per the above, if you have redirect from non-www to www, they would not have to follow the 301 redirect, since it points to a file Google would check separately (registered separately in webmaster tools).

[g1smd]

If A redirects to B and you now add a new redirect such that B redirects to C you should now go back and alter A so that it redirects directly to C.

This avoids the A -> B -> C redirection chain.

[aakk9999]

If A redirects to B and you now add a new redirect such that B redirects to C you should now go back and alter A so that it redirects directly to C.

This avoids the A -> B -> C redirection chain.

This is my understanding too. In fact, I have some of these redirect, and they go in one hit. This is why I was puzzled by lucy24's post.

[lucy24]

Remember, I was talking about automated redirects. If I did it the :: ahem :: right way, I would have my own code in my own htaccess, redirecting both

www.example.com/naked-directory
and
example.com/naked-directory

in one fell swoop to

www.example.com/directory-with-slash/

But the point of the question was that I am obviously not the only human being on the planet who lets things be done either by Apache (directory slash) or by the host (domain name regularizing).

If the Forums software allowed polls, you could ask what proportion of www site owners-- interpreting the term loosely-- have even looked at their htaccess. Not config files, because if you have your own server you are already in the numerical minority. The Big Leagues.