Google: How Soon Can You Remove 301 Redirects?

Jan 18, 2019 - 7:57 am 16 by

Google Patience

We've covered the topic of how long Google wants you to keep 301 redirects in place here numerous times. John Mueller was asked the question again and this time he said on Twitter "After a few years the old URLs are often no longer accessed & you can drop those redirects."

This is similar to his advice about being patient when removing 301 redirects and to leave them up and running for over a year.

This time he said you should try to keep them up for a "few years" not after you first put them in place but after the old URLs are seen to no longer have been accessed. John Mueller then said a bit later on Twitter to keep them for "at least a year."

Here are the tweets:

Why keep the redirects for so long? (1) For users who may click on a link and get sent to a dead URL instead of being redirected to the new URL. (2) So Google can pass PageRank and other link signals from an old URL to a new URL.

I have redirects in place for over 15 years already. :)

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: June 30, 2025

Jun 30, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Supports Fewer Structured Data, Not More Like Promised

Jun 30, 2025 - 7:51 am
Bing Ads

Microsoft Removed Over One Billion Ads & 475,000 Advertiser Accounts

Jun 30, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Tests AI Mode In Chrome Search Bar (Desktop & Android)

Jun 30, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

PSA: Fan Out Queries Are Not In Google Search Console

Jun 30, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google Ads

New Google Ads Broad Match Experiments Testing

Jun 30, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Patches The Open Date Google Local Edits Hack