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The SEO way to safely redirect a Page or folder using 301 redirects |
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In a recent project we are restructuring a site to be more intuitively architected. But what impact will moving the directories or pages have on all that hard earned Search Engine Ranking Optimisation work?
This article deals with how to safely redirect users from an old page or folder to the new URL, and keep Search Engine's informed of your changes without leading them to dead content (Dead content is bad and will adversely affect your Site rankings).
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Redirecting a URL using 301 or 302 |
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If I want to redirect a URL I will usually try and do it on the server side, as this seems like the best fit solution to a redirect. It can be done server side, or in code, examples of both are below.
Whether it is an entire site redirect or a page move necessitating a URL redirect there are some small, but key differences in how to do it.
Differences in 301 or 302 redirects
The 302 redirect is a temporary redirect that indicates to browsers and search engines that it is not a permanent change. This is all well and good, but some engines will overlook this due to knowing that it is a temporary change. Google for instance will not index redirects of this type, effectively leaving your users pointed at the wrong URL.
The 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. It is much more search engine friendly, as they will not skip over it. They read it and cache the destination template as the end point, rather than using the redirect url, so saving your users that extra jump.
Implementing the redirect
In IIS:
- In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
- Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
- Enter the redirection page
- Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource" (This makes it a 301 redirect)
- Click on 'Apply'
In code:
2<cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.redirect-url.com">
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Google Analytics tracking across multiple domains |
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I recently came across an issue where an online application was crossing several domains during the customer experience, and the Google Analytics tracking was losing the referrer when they left the originating domain.
The usual Google Analytics tracking code is:
2var tracker = _gat._getTracker("#GACode#");
3 tracker._setDomainName("none");
4 tracker._setAllowLinker(true);
5 tracker._initData();
6 tracker._trackPageview();
7</script>
With the addition of two extra lines:
2tracker._setAllowLinker(true);
We can force each link to carry the cookie data over to the next domain, maintaining the user data throughout.
There is one other small change. Any href that transitions from one domain to the next has to include an onclick event that tells it to use a tracker method.
We need to do something similar to form submissions:
In this way the user cookie is maintained across multiple domains.
