Search Engine Optimization - Ver. 3 Redirects Do they work?

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Ver. 3 Redirects Do they work?

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Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Search Engine Optimization
Forum Description: Talk about ways to optimize your ProductCart store for search engines
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=726
Printed Date: 22-June-2024 at 9:51pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Ver. 3 Redirects Do they work?

Posted By: watercrazed
Subject: Ver. 3 Redirects Do they work?
Date Posted: 03-April-2007 at 4:40am

Well, from a users standpoint they do. But I am less sure about how google and other spiders with view them. After using 4 of the available header status checking tools. All of them reported a problem on my site. Based on the header response code the redirects are sending the browers to an invalid page. Google could well be seeing a blank page with an error code.

Here are the results from my test on my site. I would like to know if others are getting similar errors or if it is isolated to my site. Do you think it is a problem in the search engines eyes, even if you can replicate the results.

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URL=http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/ViewC at_h.asp?idCategory=85
Result code: 301 (MovedPermanently / Moved Permanently) [so far so good

]
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:14:27 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQQDQQQQ=GHKJDLNAFEIHIOEKDFAMOFBJ; path=/
Cache-Control: private
New location: viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H
Location is not an absolute URL! [here is the problem

]
Assuming new URL is: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/viewcateg ories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H

URL= http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/viewcateg ories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H
Result code: 302 (Found / Moved Temporarily) [could live with this

]
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:14:28 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Pragma: no-cache
Location: msg.asp?message=86
Content-Length: 139
Content-Type: text/html
Expires: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:13:28 GMT
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQQDQQQQ=HHKJDLNAOHFCDHPMFMMKDDCE; path=/
Cache-Control: no-cache
New location: msg.asp?message=86
Location is not an absolute URL!
Assuming new URL is: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/msg.asp?m essage=86 [ but then the tool did something unexpected

can not live with this if it is what the
spider is seeing and how it is reacting to the invalid header}

So another test
------------------------------------------------------------ --

using a google bot simulator

1. Requesting: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/ViewCat_h .asp?idCategory=85
    GET /productcart/pc/ViewCat_h.asp?idCategory=85 HTTP/1.1
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Keep-Alive: 300
    Accept:*/*
    Host: www.ultimatewatermassage.com
    Accept-Language: en-us
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

   Server Response: 301 Moved Permanently [ Good

]
    Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:22:10 GMT
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
    MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
    X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
    Location: viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H
    Content-Length: 0
    Content-Type: text/html
    Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQQDQQQQ=LJKJDLNABAJIBNCKICLKGBGC; path=/
    Cache-control: private

Redirecting to viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H ... [ no so good

]

2. Requesting: viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H
    GET viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H HTTP/1.1
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Keep-Alive: 300
    Accept:*/*
    Host:
    Accept-Language: en-us
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

WinHttp.WinHttpRequest error '80072ee6' [ Broke the tool

]

The URL does not use a recognized protocol

/tools/headers/index.asp, line 298
Cache-Control: private

------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------

Checked URL: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/ViewCat_h .asp?idCategory=85
Status: 301
Location: viewcategories.asp?idCategory=85&pageStyle=H

It seems that the redirect goes to a partial url that is interpreted as an
invalid URL

To try and check it was not the just the tools or my site
I ran a few redirects I use for other SEO issues.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
A redirect I prepared to deal with a different duplicate content issue
A

. Requesting: http://64.187.108.246/links/alternativehealingproducts.htm
    GET /links/alternativehealingproducts.htm HTTP/1.1
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Keep-Alive: 300
    Accept:*/*
    Host: 64.187.108.246
    Accept-Language: en-us
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0b; Windows NT 6.0)

   Server Response: 301 Moved Permanently
    Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:47:04 GMT
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
    MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
    X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
    Location: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm
    Content-Length: 17911
    Content-Type: text/html
    Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQRBRTRR=NINBMJPAPILPBPKJLEOJDILF; path=/
    Cache-control: private

Redirecting to http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm ...

2. Requesting: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm
    GET /links/alternativehealingproducts.htm HTTP/1.1
    Connection: Keep-Alive
    Keep-Alive: 300
    Accept:*/*
    Host: www.ultimatewatermassage.com
    Accept-Language: en-us
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0b; Windows NT 6.0)

   Server Response: 200 OK
    Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:47:05 GMT
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
    MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
    X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
    Content-Length: 17911
    Content-Type: text/html
    Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQRBRTRR=OINBMJPAKGNOEGALDNAOIPAA; path=/
    Cache-control: private

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A REDIRECT WORKING
from non-www. to www

URL=http://ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm
Result code: 301 (MovedPermanently / Moved Permanently)
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:52:45 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm
Content-Length: 17911
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQRBRTRR=KKNBMJPANOAMBNPNJJKMELHN; path=/
Cache-Control: private
New location: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm

URL= http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/links/alternativehealing products.htm
Result code: 200 (OK / OK)
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:52:45 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Content-Length: 17911
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSQRBRTRR=LKNBMJPAPLEMPPOMEOOMAPEN; path=/
Cache-Control: private

-------------
John

http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com - massagers, heat therapy, buckwheat pillows and more

Replies:

Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 03-April-2007 at 1:04pm

Redirect Problem

John, the link http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/ViewCat_h.asp?idCategory=85 points to a category that is not valid. So it redirects to: http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/msg.asp?message=86 - http://www.ultimatewatermassage.com/productcart/pc/msg.asp?m essage=86

Do you believe that the problem is that the redirect to the message page (msg.asp) is a local redirect? If so, you can certainly change that by editing the file "pc/pcBreadCrumbs.asp" (line 27 and 88). Try replacing that with the full URL to that page and see if your tests run successfully then.

Overdoing SEO

Now, that said, considering other messages that you have posted, I believe that you are overdoing your on-site SEO. If I were you, I would change strategy 180 degrees. You only have 45 links to your Web site http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-34,GGGL:en&q=link:sn1LozC_GP8J:www.ultimatewatermassage.com/ - according to Google : I would focus 100% of my time on that. From a quick look, it appears to me that your Web site is already SEO optimized. Don't overdo it.

Believe me when I say that at Early Impact we stopped long ago overdoing SEO and focused back on our business and good, old PR. The results have been outstanding (this includes organic search results on some of our top keyword phrases).

In my view, it's much better to spend your time marketing your products and your company rather than worrying about things like the duplicate content filter/penalty. That's because the bottom line is: those are things that are mostly outside of your control. What if a competitor created a copy of your Web site? What if they created 10 copies of it? What if they posted the same copy you use on a ton of different blogs and newsgroups? Sleepless nights over duplicate content? No way!

Cheers,

Massimo

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The ProductCart Team

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