The Possible Google Penalties Associated With Bad 301 Redirects

In a WebmasterWorld thread, the effects of 301 redirects are discussed. Can you be penalized?

Apparently, the answer is yes. Tedster notes that a number of webmasters, when they discovered the potential of 301 redirects, "started throwing [them] around like confetti." The penalties were harsh and now he advises against using it.

How bad are the penalties? Tedster says that they can be so bad that your domain could lose trust in Google's eyes -- forever. He does acknowledge that reinclusion requests can be filed in the event of mistakes.

What about using 404s instead? Tedster advises against that:

It would be a sign of good faith, I'd say, to abandon attempts to hold on to any link juice the previous domain tried to transfer and let the new domain stand on its own.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

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posted Tamar Weinberg in Other Google Topics at August 5, 2008 9:59 AM Comments (5)

Comments

I think this is good advice, I did it for a client a little while back, I redirected a bait to this product page and actually sent the bounce rate down from like 95%+ to under 50%, to begin with it really made sense and they got a lot of sales from it, the bait was ranking for a money term on Google UK. However now it seems to have stopped working, well most of it and the clients rankings are tanking. I might try getting rid of it after hearing this advice.

Posted by David Eaves at August 5, 2008 12:21

301s have their time and place, but I guess all things must be in moderation. Buying expired PR domains and redirecting these irrelevant names to your own site would probably set off some red flags.

Posted by No Name at August 5, 2008 13:27

"It would be a sign of good faith, I'd say, to abandon attempts to hold on to any link juice the previous domain tried to transfer and let the new domain stand on its own." - good to know. Sad to hear it, but good to know.

Posted by No Name at August 5, 2008 15:16

David Eaves,

There is a really good example of what you should do with linkbait pages vs product pages in a SeoMoz post done by Rand. He explain how to do it properly and he also explains good and bad tactics doing linkbait. Check it out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-why-linkbuilding-and-landing-pages-dont-mix

Posted by Federico Muñoa at August 6, 2008 11:57

I really dont see any harm in using 301 redirects for 100s or 1000s of pages at all.

I have done with positive results.

Posted by Jaan kanellis at August 12, 2008 21:53

The Possible Google Penalties Associated With Bad 301 Redirects

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