How Long A Site Should Keep A Redirect After A Site Move?
Posted On : December 8th, 2021 By : Dillip K Mohanty To : Technical SEOWhen we think of moving a website, there are numerous questions that come to our mind. One of the most asked questions regarding a site move is how long a webmaster should keep the redirects after a site move.
Google’s John Mueller recently delivered a quick short answer to this most asked question in the latest episode of AskGoogleBot.
In this video, John said that Google recommends webmasters to use 301 permanent redirects for site moves and advised them to keep this redirect in place for at least a year.
But, why webmasters have to keep the redirects for at least one year?
The main intent behind this timeframe is that after a site move Google wants to see the URL changes in the form of redirects for at least a few times to record these changes and to make sure Google has already seen the redirections enough times, it is suggested to keep the redirects in place for at least one year.
It doesn’t mean you are bound to remove the redirects after one year. It is always safe to keep a redirect longer.
Additionally, John advised that it is crucial to update all references to the old URL after a site move which includes links the pages may have within your website and critical links from outside.
One important thing that webmasters must have to keep in mind is that redirections are very crucial. These can either make things or brake them completely. So, before adding redirections make sure that you are redirecting your old pages to their respective new pages and not committing any sort of technical errors. And after adding redirections it is always preferable to check your redirections for any kind of errors. If you have small amount of redirections then you can check them manually else you can use software like Screaming Frog to check.
Check out the AskGoogleBot episode here.
Useful Resources
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/site-move-with-url-changes
https://www.suvaance.com/microblog/does-301-redirection-count-as-backlink/
He is the co-founder & director of SUVAANCE Internet Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd. He is passionate about search marketing & Google algorithm and is actively writing on these here.
