Does 301-Redirect Transfer the Penalty?
Getting penalized is every webmaster’s nightmare. Even if you are completely innocent (which is unlikely as penalties seldom happen without a reason), figuring that out may take months which can actually ruin your business.
One theoretical way to quickly to solve the problem might be a 301 redirect following the logic:
- 301 redirect “transfers” the link power (which means links pointing to one particular domain will now point to a new one);
- By transferring the link power, 301-redirect indirectly transfers rankings;
- There is neither evidence nor official statement proving that 301-redirect transfers any other domain scores and records (like reputation, penalties, etc)
- So by using 301 redirect, you may transfer the link power and thus restore the former rankings of the old domain.
This might work provided the domain wasn’t penalized because of improper link building because in that case the penalty may be transferred together with the “bad” links.
Anyway, this should be tested (I wish I had a penalized domain to try that out). This forum thread discusses this solution based on (educated) guesses.
Any experience to share?
17 Responses to “Does 301-Redirect Transfer the Penalty?”
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
- jacket potato oven on 7 Widely Believed Myths Of SEO
- simon bunting on 5 SEO Mistakes Anybody Can Avoid
- 4WallsRentals on Think you Need a Company Facebook Page? Think Again
- simon bunting on 3 New Ways to Reuse Old Articles to Triple Your Backlinks
- seosmarty (Ann Smarty) on Don’t Feel Like Blogging Today? Get Free Unique Blog Content in MyBlogGuest Articles Gallery
It’s worth mentioning that if redirecting via a 301 from one page to another (or between domains), make sure the content remains very close and related between the two pages.
[Reply]
Hi Ann, I have a Google penalized domain I’ll give to you for testing if you’d like. It’s just a domain, not a website. Email me your GoDaddy account # and I’ll forward said domain.
The domain is not http://www.website-hosting-reviews.net/ - where people can find well written reviews on web hosts. The comment deal asked for a website, so I used that. Mike
[Reply]
I have tried it on a domain seoforsmartpeople.com and I directed it to another domain http://www.01searchrankings.com/ - and I didn’t see any ranking improvements after the redirect a few months ago, so I think that Google took this in to consideration.
[Reply]
I have done this before and the domain transferred the ranking and the links.
OT: I have another question though I have a website that has a PR4 before but due to not following one of Google’s rules it got a PR0 what can I do for it to have PR again even PR1.?
[Reply]
Ann, with all due respect, I’m kind of surprised this made the SEL Searchcap.
This question has been asked and answered multiple times. Even if this question was still relevant then it’s not offering any insight.
If you have a question like this it should be asked on any of the great SEO forums out there where any one of a number of people would tell you that penalty moves with a 301. Even multiple 301’s.
[Reply]
Ann Smarty Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Never meant it should make SEL
Anyway, like you may have seen fro the comments the topic is not by far as straightforward as you think.
Also, this blog (as well as most SEO forums) is for discussing SEO issues and sharing opinions.
[Reply]
hey Ann,
Thanks for this post. I am having so much tough time with http://www.carloan2.com/ as this site was doing great 5-6 months back. It was on google 1st page for almost all keywords. But suddenly it got hit to penalty. Now all the ranks are gone to 50 position back. I really dont know what went wrong with this. Since 3 Months I am trying to figuring out but still didnt found anything that had cause it a penalty. Please Help me out in this. Thanks.
[Reply]
Nice wish! :)!
[Reply]
We tested it in the past and this is not the way to get out of a penalty. There are other ways to get out of the penalty - 301 redirect isn’t one of them because it will also transfer the penalty to the new domain…
[Reply]
We’d recently done with 301 redirect from .html to .php. i think 301 redirect is pretty good way for transferring ranking and link referrals back.
[Reply]
I have a question here. Does 301 redirect you the age of the site too. Eg. If I have a site as mydomain.net which is 6 years old and now I am starting a domain mydomain.com and wish to redirect my old one to this. I get the PR, Credibilty etc.., but will I get the age?
[Reply]
Cazare Valea Prahovei Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Nope, you don’t.. Some people say there’s a 10% loss of link power whith the 301 redirect. I wonder if that’s true or not
[Reply]
Catalin Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
When you perform a redirect you’ll loose about 10 percents from the total of PR coming to that page.
[Reply]
We did a 301 redirect for our website Rotapix and we maintained our rankings
[Reply]
Thank you for the advice - just in the middle of transferring http://www.onlineenglishteacher.co.uk to .com with 301 - using SiteGround’s easy transfer options.
[Reply]
now,the 301 redriect is still useful for google rank?
[Reply]
I have done this before and the domain transferred the ranking and the links.
[Reply]