Are Redirects Bad for SEO?

It’s normal for a healthy website to grow over the years with dozens of blogs, product pages, guides, and how-to articles. Content is a great investment, with 70% of visitors feeling closer to businesses thanks to helpful articles. The only problem is that managing search engine optimization gets tricky with too much clutter. Some website owners use redirects to tidy up, but others have heard that redirects are bad for SEO. What’s the truth?

Are Redirects Bad for SEO on Your Website?

Most of the time, redirects are great for your site’s SEO efforts. When you use them correctly, they improve the user experience by directing traffic to the most up-to-date and accurate information. A properly placed redirect can prevent users from seeing the dreaded 404 error page, an instant SEO killer.

The 411 on 301 Redirects

When you move to a new apartment, you probably contact the post office so it forwards your mail. Redirects are the digital version of this. A 301 redirect tells Google that the old page has been permanently replaced and points out the new destination. This keeps your SEO going without skipping a beat.

The Benefits of 301 Redirects for Search Optimization

As you get more traffic and users interact with your content, the pages on your website build up authority, which helps you rank higher on search results. Let’s say that Blog A has tons of authority and ranks in the top three for an important keyword.

What would happen if you deleted Blog A to make way for Blog B, a new and improved version? All of your hard work on SEO would be a waste. Blog B would have to start over from scratch.

Redirects prevent this. Instead of deleting Blog A, you leave your Google postman a message: ‘Hey, thanks for the traffic, our new address is Blog B. Have a great day!’

All of those keywords, traffic, links, and top three ranking positions? They stay. Your updated Blog B gets it all.

When Are 301 Redirects Bad for SEO?

Redirects are usually good for SEO, but it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. Over 90% of sites make mistakes with redirects, so don’t feel bad if the following problems apply to your site.

Redirect Loops

Loops are one of the worst accidents you can make for on-page SEO. This happens if you mistakenly connect A > B > C > B or > A. Users never arrive at their destination, and the page just doesn’t load.

This is right up there with accidentally redirecting to a web page that doesn’t exist. In this case, users (and web crawlers) just see a 404 dead end.

Mistakes With Internal Linking

Unless you keep tabs on your redirects, it’s easy to forget updated pages and accidentally link to the old versions instead. This messes up your page equity and creates a tangled network of internal links that causes you headaches down the road. Plus, it leaves web crawlers confused about whether Blog A or Blog B is the right place to send traffic, and users can end up in Pasadena instead of Reno.

Accidental Deletion

This problem is more common when you have redirect chains. Your A > B has grown to A > B > C > D. One day, you’re performing website maintenance, and you see how old Blog B is, so you delete it. Now, Blog A goes nowhere and Blog D drops in search rankings like a rock.

Unrelated Content

Google has updated its guidelines for redirects in the last few years, and its bots are more picky these days. For a 301 redirect to work, your destination content has to be very similar to the original content. Trying to redirect “How To Start an E-Commerce Business” to “Best Financing Sources for Startups” doesn’t work.

Do Too Many Redirects Hurt SEO?

You don’t have to panic if you have a few short A > B > C redirect chains. That won’t hurt your site. Things are different with longer redirect chains, however.

According to Google, the first problem is that crawlers only follow a maximum of five hops for redirects. After five redirect links, Google turns into a frustrated Uber driver and decides to toss your jalapeno poppers out the window instead of delivering them.

The second problem is that page loading times multiply with each hop. If Blog A takes two seconds to load, B takes two more, the loading time continues to add up. By the time users reach Blog E, they have to wait 10 seconds for it to load!

Guess what happens then. Making visitors wait three seconds increases the risk of them saying sayonara by 30%. At five seconds, the bounce rate goes up by 90%. At 10 seconds, they’re probably already reading a competitor’s page.

How Do You Redirect Without Losing SEO?

Redirects aren’t bad for SEO if you need them. Just try to keep any redirect chains to three hops max, and never go beyond five under any circumstances.

Already have long redirect chains? Fix them by changing the links.

Instead of A > B > C > D, link directly from A > D. In other words, any time you update content, go back to the original page and point it to the newest version of your web page. Then either delete B and C or point them to the new page, too.

The Power of Planning

It takes way less time to wash dishes right after eating instead of waiting until they pile up in the sink. In the same way, good organization helps you avoid messy situations. Build categories ahead of time for product pages and blog articles, like this:

• “www.examplisite.com/products/footwear/cowboyboots/”
• “www.examplisite.com/products/jeans/”
• “www.examplisite.com/services/customization/”
• “www.examplisite.com/blog/how-to-choose-jeans”

This type of planning prevents duplicate pages from causing redirect issues. Otherwise, you start with “www.examplisite.com/cowboyboots” and have to redirect when you decide to branch out to other products down the line.

Let Our Team Fix Redirect Problems for SEO Success

If you can’t make heads or tails of your site’s layout, it’s time to call in the pros. Our team can help you sort out your content and optimize for search. Good redirects are never bad for SEO. See how we do it.