Redirection of high PR URLs

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Redirection of high PR URLs

shaunm

11:13 am on Aug 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

Hi,

There are some periodic redirects happening on my Website. Recently I noticed that there is a need for redirecting product pages from long path to simple URLs

Such as

example.com/folder1/folder2/page.aspx
to
example.com/page.aspx

All these pages have PR of 4 and above. Is that a good idea to move pages to the root directory? When the old page has PR of 4, will that be passed along to the new URL? If so, how long will it take?

Thanks a lot for helping me shape my understanding of SEO.

Best,

aakk9999

1:16 pm on Aug 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

I think we need more information in order to give you the best answer.

There are some periodic redirects happening on my Website.

What do you mean by this? That the same URL sometimes redirects and sometimes not?

Recently I noticed that there is a need for redirecting product pages from long path to simple URLs

Why there is a need for this redirect? Is it because you have a new CMS that requires this? Or is it because you wish to do so? If so, why, is it because of misleading information in URL or because you purely want to remove folders from the URL (why?) or for some other reason?

[edited by: aakk9999 at 1:20 pm (utc) on Aug 21, 2012]

tedster

1:18 pm on Aug 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

A redirect will usually pass along MOST of the original PageRank (and other types of link influence) but not all of it. It may not happen at all in some situation - for instance, when Google's algorithms detect there may be attempt at manipulating rankings.

How long it takes to get incorporated is an open question again. Things can be very quickly changed, or it can take weeks and weeks. The difference seems to depend on how many URLs are redirected, and whether the site has a history of lots of redirects or has been pretty stable.

Redirects can be very important and useful, but they should not be treated casually.

shaunm

1:59 pm on Aug 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

@aakk9999

What do you mean by this? That the same URL sometimes redirects and sometimes not?

Nope. It's not some redirects on a periodic basis as my original post says. It's some redirects now and then. Not the same URL, different URLs at different times.

Why there is a need for this redirect? Is it because you have a new CMS that requires this? Or is it because you wish to do so?

Yes, they are changing the CMS. But I don't think which is the reason behind these redirects. The products often go through some name changes it seems. So they are redirecting the OLD PAGES to NEWER PAGES?!?

Thanks,

shaunm

2:01 pm on Aug 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

@tedster

Redirects can be very important and useful, but they should not be treated casually.

Thank you :)

Brett_Tabke

2:28 pm on Aug 27, 2012 (gmt 0)

> A redirect will usually pass along MOST of the original PageRank

That has been the supposition I have heard for a few years. I think it is accurate when talking about site-to-site or domain-to-domain (eg: inbound external links from offsite). However; insite hard redirects from one page to another - I think passes all the available PR.