The SEO Danger of Multiple 301 Redirect “Hops”
We migrated a site from one domain to another www.originalsite.com to www.newsite.com and also made it https at the same time.
I had just added the old domain in the WPENGINE Domain section to redirect to new site. It was redirecting as it should to the new equivalents.
BUT
In the months since the launch, traffic (particularly organic) had dropped 50%
This isn’t unusual for a short period of time, with such a drastic move, and particularly with the holidays – I wasn’t concerned.
A Case of Multi-Hop 301s
So I tested with http://www.redirect-checker.org/ and it spat out this…
http://www.originalsite.com
301 Moved Permanently
http://www.newsite.com/
301 Moved Permanently
https://www.newsite.com/
200 OK
The way we had added coupled with the fact we are forcing the site SSL meant there were two 301 redirects!
Evidently Google will follow chained redirects but it’s unknown how much SEO value is lost with each “hop”. But keeping it to one single 301 is the safest (and quickest loading).
I don’t know if this was part of our ranking loss but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a contributing factor. Since then the traffic has climbed up nicely.
How to Properly Add Domain Redirects
I ended up adding originalsite.com and www.originalsite.com separately in the Domains section but not redirecting them there. I added these redirects to the redirect section and I think it has fixed the issue…
Source: ^(/)?(.*)
Destination: https://www.newsite.com/blog/$2
