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Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

I may changing the categories for products in my site in an attempt remove duplicate content issues and allow easier bot crawling.

 

so for example

 

Products which are in category

a/b/c/d

 

will now only appear in d


e.g 

from: root/product1.html
to: root/d/product1.html

 

my question is do I really need to do 301 redirects if magento can already do:

 

The page you requested was not found, but we have searched for relevant content

 

If I don't do 301 when the spiders hits root/product1.html and can't find it, how reliably will it find root/d/product1.html if it does find root/d/product1.html the spider should then index this page instead correct?

 

 

FYI

 

I have turned off category paths in the backend, so all my url's are going to the root 

e.g.

root/product1.html

 

but I do intend on turning this on again when I make the change

 

7 REPLIES 7

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi @jduffin611,


Why you won't use canonical URLs for your products?

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi


>From chatting with numerous SEO guys on forums etc, the use of Cano's are very hit and miss with Google bots even though it is mostly their ideas, so the best and most reliable solution is to have products appearing in a single category!


Or so I'm told :-)

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi @jduffin611,

 

I was talking with some SEO professionals just to get another point of view.

The recomendation (in my case) was to use cannonical URLs.

I guess it will depend (a little bit) of which person manage your marketing strategy but, in my case, as developer, my decision will be to use the cannoncial option.

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi @jduffin611,

 

I suggest the same way to use the Canonical URLs for letting Google know which page should be displayed for the relevant searches as @Damian Culotta mentioned.

 

I'm doing using this method for the last 6-7 years and never had any issues in crawling or getting the pages displayed in Search pages.

 

You don't need to do the redirections. Canonical URLs are meant to be for such duplicate pages.

 

Let me know if this answers your question.

 

 

CheersMan Happy

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Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi All

 

I've been getting so many answers from different sources, to be honest I'm not sure what to think anymore!

 

I'll need a long hard think about this and get as many opinions as possible then I guess I'll just have to trust someone is right and  someone is wrong #meltedbrain

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi @jduffin611,

 

I undertstand you perfectly.

You should find a partner/consultant who inspires you trust and work from there.

In the meantime maybe would like to take a final moment to read why canonical urls are a good thing: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en

 

 

Re: Do I really need to do Product 301 redirect on moved categories

Hi All

I have another question on a similar vine,

 

As mentioned above I have turned off category paths for my products so all product url's are:

 

www.mysite.com/product1.html

 

Google has been crawling these pages for 6+ months now

 

If I turn on category paths again, will Magento automatically redirect Google and users from:

 

www.mysite.com/product1.html

to

www.mysite.com/mycategory/mycategory1/product1.html

 

so allowing Google to Index the full path?

 

Basically I'm trying to see if I need to do 301 redirects/Cano tags on my thousands of  products