Does on-page 301 redirect code substitute for IIS version?

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Does on-page 301 redirect code substitute for IIS version?

Has anybody had bad experiences using this method?

jastra

5:12 pm on Sep 16, 2010 (gmt 0)

In an emergency, when I couldn't get into IIS on a shared Windows server, I used on-page code for a 310 redirect instead of what I assume is the preferred way-- through IIS.

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://www.new-location.com"
%>

I redirected hundreds of obsoleted but indexed pages using this ASP page:
http://example.com/directoryname/listings.asp

It works. All those pages that were indexed in Google are now redirecting to my new page.

And the check server header tool says
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently

Is this all I need to do to keep from losing all that prior content, or should I find a Web host where I can get into IIS and do it the old fashioned way?

phranque

11:30 pm on Sep 16, 2010 (gmt 0)

although the VBScript appears to be within the "on page" code, the status code response is actually sent before, or rather in this case instead of, the document.
so it appears to be doing the correct thing which is good.

what would concern and is not clear to me is if you are redirecting several legacy pages to a single new location which is usually a bad thing to do.

jastra

3:02 pm on Sep 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

It's true that there are 100 legacy pages but they are all dynamic pages generated to /listings.asp.
/listings.asp?=red
/listings.asp?=blue
etc.

phranque

11:32 pm on Sep 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

do each of the unique legacy urls get redirected to a unique new location?

jastra

2:44 am on Sep 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

No, they don't.

All listings.asp pages that were indexed are now redirected to one current page.

Under the new site, the old functionality (all those categories) was given up. All those categories no longer exist, nor does anything on the new site approximate that old functionality.

So all the dynamic pages stemming from /listings.asp are redirected to one new page. It's also named listings.asp but it only links to a couple of new pages that are similar.

A couple of hundred dynamic pages went away.

I seem to remember Matt Cutts saying that when redirecting, one should redirect to the most similar page, or something to that effect.

phranque

10:35 am on Sep 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

redirecting a large number of pages to a single page can cause problems from both the SEO perspective and the user experience.
i would approach the problem from the user's perspective.
perhaps a few pages representing categories or information silos would work better than a single generic page.

i would also study the inbound links to these urls.
one or a few of these urls may actually be well worth the effort of recreating and redirecting or even better, keeping at the original url.
in this case it may actually be better to recreate/redirect only the valuable content and letting the rest go 404 or 410, using a custom 404/410 page with some relevant navigation and a search function.

other than the change of ownership issues, this thread has some advice that applies to your situation:

Bought a domain. How to redirect old pages?:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4097996.htm [webmasterworld.com]

jastra

12:22 pm on Sep 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

That page did have a good discussion. As Tedster suggested, I could create a separate new page for each of the categories delivered by listings.asp?=category (maybe 15 or so) and redirect the appropriate pages. Many of those old pages had PR2.

That begs one last question: what's the "shelf life" of those old pages in the index. Is two weeks with the new site live too late to try that scheme?