Redirects and Their Impact On SEO

SEO or Search engine optimisation has been in the industry for so long now. More and more companies are making the most of SEO tools. But have you heard about the ‘redirects’? Well, it is something new and it has its own impact on SEO. This post is going to get you a quick peep into this. 

What really is the concept of Redirects? 

For all of you who are non-technical, these 301 and 302 redirects may look like alien to you. Before you go any further and understand the impact of redirects on SEO, get some information about what redirects are at the first place. Redirecting a page just means that you are assigning a fresh URL to it. This is not really always the case because at times when folks use redirection, they even alter the design, the navigation, the coding and so on. It really depends on what motive you are redirecting the webpage.  A person generally redirect a webpage for the below given reasons: 

• The URL is not working or it  is broken  
• The webpage/website is no longer working  
• You are fixing a website page and you wish to provisionally make a diversion for your users for constant website experience 
• You own a new webpage/website that you wish people to visit instead of the previous one  
• You’re A/B testing a fresh webpage in the shape of functionality and design. 

 What is the Impact of Redirects on SEO? 

You know what, redirects are not really the finest response code you might show Google when exploring the website, but these are essential in various instances. So, the point is redirects do not have a wrong impact on SEO unless you are doing it the wrong way. 

It is important to know that 301 redirect boosts the page loading time. Well, this is something that is not generally noticed by users but this is considered by Google. It is because it takes an additional step for the spider to crawl the fresher page, and it can add a few milliseconds to the loading speed. 

Is there Any Restriction to Number of Redirects on a Website? 

Well, not really.  But there surely is a maximum number of redirects per single page. Google endorses not to exceed two in a row. Remember that five or six is going to be too many already and the spider is going to stop visiting the site. Such a redirect chain would mean that for every single extra page, the user may experience a delay and consequently loses interest, and the same is with the spider, it means a page does lose authority with redirect chains. Also, keep in mind that professionals do recommend to ALWAYS redirect to the fresh or latest page. Irrespective of how much effort this shall take you, this is the only way not to enhance the loading time and to evade any authority loss. 

So, don’t forget that  301 redirects are extremely crucial for SEO and might be the difference between an efficacious site rebuild and a failed one.   After all, it keeps the visitors engaged.