Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can I remove 301 redirects after some time?
-
Hello,
We have an very large number of 301 redirects on our site and would like to find a way to remove some of them.
Is there a time frame after which Google does not need a 301 any more? For example if A is 301 redirected to B, does Google know after a while not to serve A any more, and replaces any requests for A with B?
How about any links that go to A?
Or: Is the only option to have all links that pointed to A point to B and then the 301 can be removed after some time?
Thank you for you you help!
-
Thank you both for your answers, I really appreciate, they are very helpful!
-
Why do you think there are too many 301 redirects? There is no limit to how many 301 redirects you can have and I'm not sure why you think removing them will 'ease download times'.
Your concern about the links is correct. If you remove the 301s then you lose the value that these links are passing through the redirect.
I'd love to know who these 'experts' are because I've never heard of that. Sounds completely made up and, to my knowledge, is incorrect.
I would suggest you take a look at Google's explanation about 301 redirects as it could prove informative to you.
-
Thank you for your reply.
We want to get rid of the 301s as there are just too many. Our site was not set up with lots of strategy, and it takes hundresds of 301's to consolidate.
The reason to get rif of them is to ease management, and to ease download time.
My concern is not only the 404s it is the links that go to the pages that where 301.
I have heard from some experts that it is ok to remove the 301s as once Google realizes one page is permanently redirected to another it keeps a recod to it and the 301 i sno longer needed. I am not sure that is correct.
Thank you!
-
Streamline is right that you should keep the 301 redirects in place so that any links pointing to the old pages pass value through the redirect to the new pages.
Is there a time frame after which Google does not need a 301 any more? For example if A is 301 redirected to B, does Google know after a while not to serve A any more, and replaces any requests for A with B?
Simply put, no. If you remove the 301 redirect then any requests for page A will return page A and not B.
How about any links that go to A?
These links will now be passing all their value to page A.
Or: Is the only option to have all links that pointed to A point to B and then the 301 can be removed after some time?
If it is possible for you to change all links that point to A, to then point to B, then maybe. However, it is very unlikely you will be able to do this and it will be extremely time consuming.
In short, your best option is to leave the 301 redirects in place as best SEO practice.
-
May I ask why you wish to remove the redirects? If other sites are linking to any of your old pages, then you should leave the 301 redirects in place since the search engines will likely crawl those links only to discover a 404 page.
Otherwise, you could go ahead and try removing the 301 redirects and monitor Google Webmaster Tools to see if Google encounters any 404 pages. If you do see the 404s start increasing, then you'll know that you should probably put the 301 redirects back in place.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the difference between 301 redirects and backlinks?
i have seen some 301 redirects on my site billsonline, can anyone please explain the difference between backlinks and 301 redirects, i have read some articles where the writer was stating that 301 are not good for website.
Technical SEO | | aliho0 -
301 Redirect for multiple links
I just relaunched my website and changed a permalink structure for several pages where only a subdirectory name changed. What 301 Redirect code do I use to redirect the following? I have dozens of these where I need to change just the directory name from "urban-living" to "urban", and want it to catch the following all in one redirect command. Here is an example of the structure that needs to change. Old
Technical SEO | | shawnbeaird
domain.com/urban-living (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe/the-vale (single page w/ content) New
domain.com/urban
domain.com/urban/tempe
domain.com/urban/tempe/the-vale0 -
How to redirect 302 status to 301 status code using wordpress
I just ran the link opportunity option within site explorer and it shows that 31 pages are currently in a 302 status. Should I try to convert the 302's to 301's? And what is the easiest way to do this? I see several wordpress plugins that claim to do 301 redirects but I don't know which to choose. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | vmsolu0 -
Meta descriptions and h1 tags during a 301 redirect
My employer is shifting to a new domain and i am in the midst of doing URL mapping. I realize that many of the meta descriptions and H1 tags are different on the new pages - is this a problem ? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | ptapley0 -
How to create a delayed 301 redirect that still passes juice?
My company is merging one of our sites into another site. At first I was just going to create a 301 redirect from domainA.com to domainB.com but we decided that would be too confusing for customers expecting to see domainA.com so we want to create a page that says something like "We've moved. please visit domainB.com or be redirected after 10 seconds". My question is, how do I create a redirect that has a delay and will this still pass the same amount of juice that a regular 301 redirect would? I've heard that meta refreshes are considered spammy by Google.
Technical SEO | | bewoldt0 -
301 redirects & merging two sites into one
We have a client that has two sites that rank well for different searches in their market. The main pages ranking are things like advice articles and news pieces. For various reasons, they just want one site. I believe they need to duplicate the content from the outgoing site and place it on the main site, with a 301 redirect from each old page to each new one. What happens when they eventually want to redirect the entire domain? Would these smaller, internal redirects become obsolete, therefore removing any link value they once had? I am not sure how this works or if there is a best practice way to do this. Thanks Gareth
Technical SEO | | Gmorgan0 -
Drupal URL Aliases vs 301 Redirects + Do URL Aliases create duplicates?
Hi all! I have just begun work on a Drupal site which heavily uses the URL Aliases feature. I fear that it is creating duplicate links. For example:: we have http://www.URL.com/index.php and http://www.URL.com/ In addition we are about to switch a lot of links and want to keep the search engine benefit. Am I right in thinking URL aliases change the URL, while leaving the old URL live and without creating search engine friendly redirects such as 301s? Thanks for any help! Christian
Technical SEO | | ChristianMKTG0 -
How long will Google take to stop crawling an old URL once it has been 301 redirected
I need to do a clean-up old urls that have been redirected in sitemap and was wondering about this.
Technical SEO | | Ant-8080