• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Why would our server return a 301 status code when Googlebot visits from one IP, but a 200 from a different IP?

        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.

        Why would our server return a 301 status code when Googlebot visits from one IP, but a 200 from a different IP?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        5
        16
        3291
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • danatanseo
          danatanseo last edited by

          I have begun a daily process of analyzing a site's Web server log files and have noticed something that seems odd. There are several IP addresses from which Googlebot crawls that our server returns a 301 status code for every request, consistently, day after day. In nearly all cases, these are not URLs that should 301. When Googlebot visits from other IP addresses, the exact same pages are returned with a 200 status code.

          Is this normal? If so, why? If not, why not?

          I am concerned that our server returning an inaccurate status code is interfering with the site being effectively crawled as quickly and as often as it might be if this weren't happening.

          Thanks guys!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • danatanseo
            danatanseo @Christy-Correll last edited by

            Howdie,

            Yes, I believe we got this sorted out. Interestingly, it wasn't any of the suggestions made here causing the 301 status code responses. I posted a thread in Google Webmaster Tools Forum regarding the issue and received a response that I am 99.5% sure is the correct answer.

            Here is a link to that thread for future readers' reference: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!mydiscussions/webmasters/zOCDAVudxNo

            I believe the underlying issue has to do with incorrect handling of a redirect for this domain:  ccisound.com

            I am currently pursuing getting it corrected with our IT Director. Once the remedy is in place, I should know right away if it solves the issue I am seeing in the server logs. I'll post back here once I am 100% certain that was the issue.

            Thanks all! This has been an interesting one for me!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Christy-Correll
              Christy-Correll Staff last edited by

              Hi Dana, have you definitively sorted this out?

              danatanseo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • danatanseo
                danatanseo @ForForce last edited by

                They are pretty detailed, I'll send you yesterday's in a zip file so you can take a look. I'm certain that have everything needed. Thanks Eric!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ForForce
                  ForForce @William.Lau last edited by

                  Right, a DNS manager could do a redirect, but that would not be visible in the web server log.  It would only be visible in whatever is managing the DNS.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • William.Lau
                    William.Lau @danatanseo last edited by

                    Depends what kind of DNS manager you are using. A redirect via DNS can still be possible.

                    In my experience DNS managing software can redirect users with 301 or 302 headers depending on what settings you have. If your DNS manager has a security protocol along with redirect rules, it could be causing the issue.

                    Examples of DNS redirects:

                    https://dnsimple.com/url-forwarding-301-redirect

                    https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200172286-How-do-I-do-url-forwarding-with-CloudFlare-

                    ForForce 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ForForce
                      ForForce last edited by

                      The request headers will also show if any and what cookies the user may have set.  Which it looks like is how your server determines if it should provide the client the desktop or mobile version.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • ForForce
                        ForForce last edited by

                        How detailed are your log files?  Can you see the user-agent (browser name) Maybe you could ask your IT department to log request headers?  If that will make the log files too big, they can probably do it only for the 'problem' IPs, or only for cases that the webserver returns a 301.  I'll take a look if you like.  Email is in my profile.

                        Best,

                        -Eric

                        danatanseo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • danatanseo
                          danatanseo @ForForce last edited by

                          Thanks so much Eric. Yes, I was thinking about the mobile version of our site being related to what I'm seeing too. However, I am unaware that we 301 redirect anything from the main site to the mobile site. In fact, users can actually switch to the mobile site via desktop by clicking "Mobile Site" in the footer and then browse the mobile version of the site via desktop. All of the URLs are identical.

                          Just out of curiosity I browsed to the mobile version of our site, grabbed a URL and then plugged it into "Fetch as Googlebot" in GWT. For all options, including desktop and the three mobile options a status code of 200 was returned.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • ForForce
                            ForForce last edited by

                            The problem can't be related to DNS.  If the problem was related to DNS, the request would never make it to your server, and you would never see anything related to the request in your log files.

                            Because you can see it in your log file, it is definitely happening on your own webserver (not some external problem).

                            The requesting IP is probobly not the problem, but it could be if your server automatically adds to a banned list any IP that requests > X pages in Y time - your server might think this is a DOS (denial of service) attack.... But if your server was set up to do this, your IT guys would probobly know about it.  This isn't something that is normally enabled 'out of the box' someone would need to intentionally activate a behavior like that.

                            More likely, is that there is another common denominator besides the requester IP...  I would guess that it's the user agent string (the browser or device the user is using).

                            Taking a quick look at what I think is your site, you have a mobile version available.  Google of course would be interested in what your site looks like to a mobile browser, and would send a 'fake' user agent string pretending to be so (a cell phone or a tablet etc...)  If your server sees this request, and tries to automatically redirect the browser to the mobile version of the site, then you would have your 301 code (which in this case is exactly what you intended, so your all set!)

                            There are probably a few other cases that could cause a 301 for just some IPs, but this is the only one that comes to mind at the moment.

                            Good Luck!

                            danatanseo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • danatanseo
                              danatanseo @William.Lau last edited by

                              Here is the response from my IT Director regarding the possibility that this is being done by our DNS manager:

                              "I do not believe so. Our DNS does translation of human readable names to IP address. It has nothing to do with the status being returned to a browser, and even if it did it could not write to the log file."

                              Is this accurate? I understand that the DNS cannot write to the log file, but if the DNS can flag a request to receive a certain status code from the server, then this scenario would still be a possibility.

                              William.Lau 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • danatanseo
                                danatanseo @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                                According to our IT Director we have no spam filters, no mod_security module, absolutely nothing on our server to prevent it from being crawled by bot, human or spider from any IP address, including black-listed IPs.

                                To me, other than the obvious (no security is probably not a good idea at all), that means that the 301 status codes being returned because of a problem with server set up.

                                I do have server logs that I'd be willing to share privately with anyone who's willing to take a gander. Don't worry, I won't send you a month's worth. 1-2 days should be plenty.

                                In the meantime I am going to dive in and take a look further. It's entirely possible that IPs from Google are not the only ones receiving nothing but 301 status codes in response to requests.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • danatanseo
                                  danatanseo @William.Lau last edited by

                                  Thanks William. Good suggestion. I am on it! I'll post back here once I know more.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • William.Lau
                                    William.Lau @danatanseo last edited by

                                    I would not be surprised if this was done by your DNS. If you use a DNS manager, they could possibly redirect certain users or IPs based on patterns of visits.

                                    I suggest finding out more about any server configurations from the admin and seeing who they use as a DNS provider or manager.

                                    danatanseo 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • danatanseo
                                      danatanseo @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                                      Excellent thoughts!  Yes, they are consistently the same IP addresses every time. There are several producing the same phenomenon, so I looked at this one 66.249.79.174

                                      According to what I can find online this is definitely Google and the data center is located in Mountain View, California. We are a USA company, so it seems unlikely that it is a country issue. It could be that this IP (and the others like it) are inadvertently being blocked by a spam filter.

                                      It doesn't matter the day or time, every time Googlebot attempts to crawl from this IP address our server returns 301 status codes for every request, with no exceptions.

                                      I am thinking I need to request a list of IP addresses being blocked by the server's spam filter. I am not a server administrator...would this be something reasonable for me to ask the people who set it up?

                                      Is returning a 301 status code the best scenario for handling a bot attempting to disguise itself as googlebot? I would think setting the server up to respond with a 304 would be better? (Sorry, that's kind of a follow-up "side" question)

                                      Let me know your thoughts and I'm going to go see if I can find out more about the spam filter.

                                      William.Lau 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • StreamlineMetrics
                                        StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                                        Where are the 301s taking Googlebot on those IP addresses? And are they the same IP addresses every time? Have you narrowed those IP addresses down to any particular datacenter/country? It could be possible there is some configuration with your server that treats IP addresses differently depending on the country... it could also be that the IP addresses getting the 301s are known blacklisted spam IP addresses but are masking themselves as Googlebot so your server's blacklist software is keeping them out. It's really hard to say without looking into the data myself but I'm definitely interested in what you find out.

                                        danatanseo 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • 1 / 1
                                        • First post
                                          Last post

                                        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.

                                        • See all categories

                                        Related Questions

                                        • Schoellerallibert

                                          Different content on the same URL depending on the IP address of the visitor

                                          Hi! Does anybody have any expierence on the SEO impact when changing the content of a page depending on the IP address of the visitor? Would be text content as well as meta information. This happening on the same URL. Many thanks.

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Schoellerallibert
                                          0
                                        • Jazee

                                          One domain or two for one company with two lines of business?

                                          Let's say you are building a new company that is involved in two lines of business.  Let's for example say one line of business is handling logistics for large conventions where the customer(s) are large corporation and the other line is for wedding planning.  Let's say that for certain reasons the owner wants to operate under one brand name, say "PROEVENT"  So they will market themselves as PROEVENT Convention Logistics and PROEVENT Wedding Planners. From an SEO perspective, if you have one side of the business doing B-to-B corporate business and the other doing B-to-C do you create two different websites on different domains (proeventconventions.com and proeventweddings.com) with unique design and content, or, do you just use provent.com in order to build better domain authority and on your marketing you use conventions.provent.com that takes you to the convention section of the website and weddings.provent.com takes you to the weddings section?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jazee
                                          0
                                        • COEDMediaGroup

                                          301 redirect with /? in URL

                                          For a Wordpress site that has the ending / in the URL with a ? after it... how can you do a 301 redirect to strip off anything after the / For example how to take this URL domain.com/article-name/?utm_source=feedburner and 301 to this URL domain.com/article-name/ Thank you for the help

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | COEDMediaGroup
                                          0
                                        • Travis-W

                                          Multiple 301 Redirects for the Same Page

                                          Hi Mozzers, What happens if I have a trail of 301 redirects for the same page? For example,
                                          SiteA.com/10 --> SiteA.com/11 --> SiteA.com/13 --> SiteA.com/14 I know I lose a little bit of link juice by 301 redirecting.
                                          The question is, would the link juice look like this for the example above? 100% --> 90% --> 81% -->72.9%
                                          Or just 100% -----------------------------------------> 90% Does this link juice refer to juice from inbound links or links between internal pages on my site? Thanks!

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
                                          0
                                        • Prime85

                                          301 Redirect - What happens to backlinks

                                          Hello... One of my sites is losing rankings in G. I received the webmaster notification of unnatural links... My question is, should i do a 301 redirect of every page on my site to a new domain? If so, do the backlinks (which i believe are causing my rankings to drop) carry over? How about the good backlinks? Also, what would happen to the rankings i currently have on page 1? Thanks

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime85
                                          0
                                        • MangoMan16

                                          Changing Servers + Effect on SEO

                                          Hi, I am currently with a very slow server. Our website takes quite a while to load, FTP is very slow and content changes with Wordpress are slow because even the database connection takes a lot of time. However, my website ranks very well. Traffic has doubled in the last year. Our domain has been registered with this company for over 10 years. I am wondering if changing to a different hosting provider would have an effect on my rankings due to the change in IP.

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MangoMan16
                                          0
                                        • MyNet

                                          How To 301 Redirect .html pages

                                          I need to redirect a page/URL that is purely .html to a new location.  I don't know how to do this.  All the redirects I can find are for server side code pages .php/.aspx etc.  From my understanding I can't put a server side redirect in a .html file.  I am hosting on a microsoft server, however the new page I am redirecting to is .php.  I am running some WordPress (.php) files on the server.  I need to make it redirect before the old page loads so visitors don't start reading something that is about to get redirected Can someone please help me?

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyNet
                                          0
                                        • pbhatt

                                          301 Redirects After Company Acquisition

                                          We recently acquired a company, and now we are going to redirect all of the pages on their site to their respective pages on our site. Do we need to keep the original pages on their site active? For how long? Ideally, we would like to redirect everything and remove the old site entirely so we don't have to pay to keep hosting it. Is this possible? Thanks!

                                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt
                                          1

                                        Get started with Moz Pro!

                                        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                        Start my free trial
                                        Products
                                        • Moz Pro
                                        • Moz Local
                                        • Moz API
                                        • Moz Data
                                        • STAT
                                        • Product Updates
                                        Moz Solutions
                                        • SMB Solutions
                                        • Agency Solutions
                                        • Enterprise Solutions
                                        • Digital Marketers
                                        Free SEO Tools
                                        • Domain Authority Checker
                                        • Link Explorer
                                        • Keyword Explorer
                                        • Competitive Research
                                        • Brand Authority Checker
                                        • Local Citation Checker
                                        • MozBar Extension
                                        • MozCast
                                        Resources
                                        • Blog
                                        • SEO Learning Center
                                        • Help Hub
                                        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                        • How-to Guides
                                        • Moz Academy
                                        • API Docs
                                        About Moz
                                        • About
                                        • Team
                                        • Careers
                                        • Contact
                                        Why Moz
                                        • Case Studies
                                        • Testimonials
                                        Get Involved
                                        • Become an Affiliate
                                        • MozCon
                                        • Webinars
                                        • Practical Marketer Series
                                        • MozPod
                                        Connect with us

                                        Contact the Help team

                                        Join our newsletter
                                        Moz logo
                                        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                        • Accessibility
                                        • Terms of Use
                                        • Privacy

                                        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.