SEO, Google And The Power Of 301 Redirects

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 by Kerry in Company News, SEO.

An interview with Google’s Matt Cutts has revealed what many SEO professionals have been thinking for a while – that 301 redirects do not pass on the whole pagerank of the old URL and as a result ranking could be slightly effected.. Although this is not groundbreaking news in the world of optimisation, it is a rare opportunity for those in the business to find out that their understanding of the way the world’s most popular search engine works is actually on the money.

301 Redirect

Using a 301 redirect is the best way to overcome bad URL architecture, and is also used when a site needs to be moved completely. There are of course other options such as canonical tags, but these are seen by Google as a hint rather than a directive and have therefore been a less successful approach to keeping a site high in SERPs. However, an announcement from Both Bing and Yahoo that they will soon be recognising canonical tags could be an indicator that their implementation could soon be seen as best practice for those unable to utilise 301 redirects, it could also be seen as ‘a poor man’s 301’.

Link Generation

It is thought that about ten per cent of power can be lost in the 301 transition, so this needs to be made up through link generation. This can be in the form of article submissions and blogs as well as submitting to directories until the new URL gains the former power of the old one. It is small tweaks like these that SEO companies have to implement every day, the discoveries of which are through trials and tests. This is why organic optimisation is an ever changing marketplace and can require more investment than paid search.

SEO

At the end of the day, SEO practices need follow best practices to achieve the best results as seen by  Google’s algorithm and any indication from the search giant that ethical optimisation strategies are working helps professionals to keep their clients ahead of competitors legitimately. The nuggets of information revealed by the  Head of Google’s Webspam Team Matt Cutts are a welcome addition to the many resources available to SEOs; a ray of light in what is often a very foggy industry.

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