Google Bigdaddy: Better Handling of Redirects?

The 301 from there is messed up.

First you request http://www.marthagrahamdance.org/company/
Then you get a 301 back to http://marthagrahamdance.org/company/
Finally you get the correct a 301 to http://marthagraham.org/company/

but are there like 100,000 redirects that are screwed up?

hrm.. nope your right,
I randomly checked a few and most of them were legit.

I've unfortunately had to do some mass redirects on my site - and that seems to be all that Google has indexed anymore.

Doing a search for what Google has indexed of my site results in seeing a barrage of the old URLs, not the new ones. Hopefully this is just a transition stage during the update.

The way I read Matt is that the software upgrade is almost done (2 more datacenters to go?) but the actual changes will come in the coming months.

I've personally not had any problems with the 301 issues on my sites, but I'm still seeing some weird stuff in the SERPs. Most notably seeing a site listed twice (one for the non-www and one for the www) in the same search result up very high. They were using a 301 from the non-www version as well.

thanks seobuzz... I've not followed it closely, haven't had the time.

So, first they spend three plus months upgrading the systems (?!) and then they need to re-crawl and re-organize all the data that needs some reordering. Sounds pretty straightforward (albeit corporately time consuming) to me... so, let's see how it looks around summer sometime. We've only waited a few years sofar, no biggie with half a year more.

First you request http://www.marthagrahamdance.org/company/
Then you get a 301 back to http://marthagrahamdance.org/company/
Finally you get the correct a 301 to http://marthagraham.org/company/

still shaking,

2 redirects are never as good as one 301,
I believe the bot will follow 1 redirect better.

keeping in mind that the Google link operator is crap, http://www.marthagrahamdance.org/company/ got this
while http://marthagraham.org/company/ got none ,
and on a less censored version (Y!) : 176 and less

It sometimes takes several months till the SE *acknowledges* the redirect (a matter of crawlability frequency) but I doubt it's the case here (last archived version at archive.org is a year old)

This is all interesting but the real alarming issue is Aaron's great interest in a

a new pair of dance shoes...

:)

Is far worse right now than it ever was before. Hopefully, it will get sorted out soon.

How could that be? That would put it into negative territory!

How many Google PHD's does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Most of the improvements are down the road, but a search for intitle:"301 Moved Permanently" is definitely not the way to check these. I checked
http://mexicoweb.com.mx/
http://www.ucomics.com/
http://www.kumite.com/
http://www.httpsniffer.com/http/100302.htm
and they were also crypto-301s, meaning that they actually returned a status code of 200. And pages like www.checkupdown.com/status/E301.html are actually talking about 301s; they aren't actually 301s.

The answer is: "Google does not comment on matters that relate its search product" so nobody will never know.

As far as I am concerned I wish the search results would get a whole lot better, but then again I find myself searching elsewhere a great deal and using the bookmarklets sites a whole lot more. They find me stuff I was not searching for... that is something that Google and the other SEs never seem to do.

As for the 301s problem.. something that makes me cynical about the whole thing is the all the complaints seem to come from people with sites of 400,000 pages - who gets to write that many pages? I have been working on sites for 10 years and more and I could never get near there. What is that about?

2 redirects are never as good as one 301,
I believe the bot will follow 1 redirect better.

Definitely agree with that point, with Google being confused with the double redirects and constantly changing between the old page and new page. Changed the 2 redirects down to 1 and it took Google to index the new pages and drop the old ones in around 3 - 4 weeks with no issues.

As for the 301s problem.. something that makes me cynical about the whole thing is the all the complaints seem to come from people with sites of 400,000 pages - who gets to write that many pages?

Well I am about 399,970 pages short.

I have a 5 yearish old site with roughly pages of content in Google, but they are screwing up by indexing legit single 301's...sometimes showing the 301s in the results, and sometimes indexing them.

As far as I am concerned I wish the search results would get a whole lot better, but then again I find myself searching elsewhere a great deal

I hear ya! Recently I was searching for a popular blogger (has a PageRank of 7) by his name. Could not find his site in Google. His site (domain name hisname.com) was nowhere in Google's results for his own name. Was unsure if I misspelled it. I later found I did spell it correctly after I went to Yahoo!, where his site was #1.

"crypto 301" is a new term afaik. However, wouldn't it be more appropriate to call those cloaked redirects™?

I'd post an example or two of heavy 301 use/misuse but with all the handjobs these days that would just muddy the waters further. What I do want to say is that this (mis)handling of redirects has IMHO hurt the anti-SEO cause at Google. Never before has it been easier to masquerade as an SEO in the area of redirects (which includes domain name migrations, site purchases/assumptions, networks..someof the most serious and risky endeavors) - who can prove you wrong? Who can even hold you accountable? And if it really is a crap shoot, then who cares to actually base the work in fact or best practice since it won't matter?

Crypto-404 is what we call it at Google when a page looks like a 404 but returns a 200. I mentioned it here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/sitemaps-interview/

Crypto 301 would just be the same thing with a 301. My only point was that the first 7 of those results weren't really 301s.

I'm truly happy to hear any examples of 301 issues with Bigdaddy. Now would be the best time to mention any problems, in fact.

Now the real test... is it altruistic or just plain ignorant to give Matt a URL you just purchased?

Can we have a guarantee of any sort ahead of time? A friend of mine might have a URL, but he would like a guarantee of some sort.

Aaron, in this case if you're doing spam with a 301 somehow, I wouldn't tell me the specific domain this time around. I was looking for general quality feedback (things like redirects not being handled properly), not someone doing anything specifically for spam.

Part of the collateral damage I am seeing is that web firms are suggesting that clients launching new websites keep the old sites online as is. The claim is that touching them will screw up the Google indexed pages (and traffic), that the Google Guidelines for moving a website are incorrect, and that more pages = more exposure and more traffic.

As a result, the local markets are showing multiple listings in the SERPs for hotels, restaurants, etc. on different but similar domains, with one serving outdated info and one updated info.

I am also seeing web firms hosting mirrors of their client sites which selectively redirect to the client's actual domain. I can't project intent, but the activity I have seen suggests that while(still_client==TRUE) { redirect 3xx } else { redirect 3XY }

Bottom line is Google seems to have created an aftermarket in redirected traffic and encouraged spammy SERPs, while providing plausible deniability to those advising their clients (sorry about the stale news). Of course those firms probably claim they are SEO experts as well.

Two. But it has to be a very big light bulb.

Googlers wouldn't know a lightbulb if they saw one

Something which would take an .htaccess with a lot of redirects and clean it up. Some of my older sites might start getting into trouble with multiple redirects soon (from one CMS to another) - this would be a lot easier to catch with a machine than by hand.

Even a tool to tell you where the duplicate 301's are would be useful.

... but first they would have to be redirected to the light bulb even though the clerk told them it was over in the sandbox department.