Redirect Issues

This guide offers further information about the issues flagged in the Redirect Issues section of Site Crawl. For information about how to view affected pages associated with the Redirect Chain issue type, please see our View Affected Pages guide.

Quick Links

• Temporary Redirect
• Redirect Chain
• Meta Refresh
• Tracking Issue Resolution Progress

A 302 or 307 redirect is a way to temporarily send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested. By using a temporary vs. a permanent redirect (301), you are suggesting that search engines shouldn't consider this a lasting change.

Consider replacing your temporary redirect with a permanent 301 redirect, which passes 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the target page. In most instances, a 301 redirect is the best strategy for implementing redirects on a website.

• Learn more about temporary redirection

Within your Site Crawl, we will flag any pages which follow 2 or more redirects as a Redirect Chain. For example, URL A redirecting to URL B would not be considered a Redirect Chain but URL A redirecting to URL B and then redirecting again to URL C would be considered a Redirect Chain.

Redirect chains are often caused when multiple redirect rules pile up, such as redirecting a www to non-www URL or a non-secure page to a secure/HTTPS page. Look for any recurring chains that could be rewritten as a single rule. Be particularly careful with 301/302 chains in any combination, as the 302 in the mix could disrupt the ability of the 301 to pass link equity.

When fixing a redirect chain, the general idea is to reduce the number of moving parts. So if URL A is redirecting to URL B and then redirecting to URL C, it may be worth looking into updating this so that URL A redirects right to URL C. It’s always a good idea to check in with your web developer about these issues, though, as they will have the best idea of how to edit these chains.

You can preview the pages associated with the flagged redirect chain by clicking the arrow in the Preview column and then View all associated pages.

You can also see the path of the redirects found by our crawler in the CSV export of Redirect Chains. Within the CSV export we will indicate:

• URL - The URL included in the redirect chain.
• Referring URL - The referring URL for URL in the redirect chain (i.e. where the URL was found or redirected from).
• Redirect Location - Where the redirect is sending the crawler. If no redirect location is noted, it typically means that is the last URL in the redirect chain
• Status Code - The status code served to our crawler when accessing the URL.

• Learn more about viewing affected pages
• Learn more about redirection

Meta refresh is HTML coding that redirects a visitor to a new page after a specified number of seconds. Meta refreshes are a type of redirect that is executed at the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower and not a recommended SEO technique.

Consider replacing your meta refresh with a permanent 301 redirect, which passes 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the target page. In most instances, 301 is the best strategy for implementing redirects on a website.

• Learn more meta refresh redirects

As you work through issues flagged in your Campaign’s Site Crawl section you can track your progress by marking issues as fixed or by ignoring them.

• Mark as fixed: Marking an issue as Fixed will indicate to our crawler that you have taken action on your site to resolve the issue. During the next crawl of your site, the issue will be removed from the interface if the crawler does not encounter the same issue again. If the issue is still found it will be marked as Not fixed in your Site Crawl data.

• Ignore: Marking an issue as Ignore will indicate to our crawler that you are aware of the issue but are not planning to take action to resolve it. The crawler will not include the issue in upcoming crawls as a result. You can Unignore issues at any time from your Campaign Settings.

To mark issues as Fixed or Ignore, select them using the checkboxes on the left and then clicking Mark as fixed or Ignore from the top right.

For issues marked as Fixed, if our crawler does not encounter those issues in the next crawl they will be removed from your list of site crawl issues. If the issue is still found, it will be marked as Not fixed.

For issues marked as Ignore, our crawler will not report those issues in your next crawl. They will be removed from your list of site crawl issues. You can Unignore issues at any time.

• Learn more about marking issues as ignored or fixed