Double 301 Redirects, 301 on top of 301 Options

[kevinsource]

I have a question on placing a redirecting a page using a 301 that has already been redirected to.

example: www.mysite.com/one.htm redirects to www.mysite.com/two.htm...is it a bad idea to reditect www.mysite.com/two.htm to www.mysite.com/three.htm?

We made a mistake in the beginning and now are not sure what to do.

[Shane]

If there are no longer any links to one.htm, you could safely remove it altogether. If there are still links to it, just change its 301 to point to three.htm instead of two.htm. That will get you out of the double redirect.

[Gandor]

I have pretty much the same set up and I would like to know if it's a big NONO for SE's.

I have an old .htm pages and I'm using IIS 301 redirect that redirects to an "redirect.ASP?page=xyz.asp" page that I pass variables to the .ASP page and base on the variables it redirects it to the correct new .ASP pages.

is this a SE's no-no's? Thanks!

[Shane]

Does redirect.asp do a 301 or 302?

[Gandor]

I just do:

<%
response.redirect "URL"
%>

on my ASP page so I'm guessing this is a 302?

[Shane]

Yep! That's right. Which means your first 301 isn't doing you much good. (A permanent redirect to a temporary redirect is ultimately just a temporary redirect.)

You can change that fairly easily, though. Replace that one line of code with these:

Response.Status "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "URL"

However, I'd probably change your setup to have the old HTM's just do the 301 themselves. That would eliminate the problem altogether. You could do that simply by doing a Server.Transfer to your Redirect.asp instead of 301'ing, if you didn't want to add 301 code to each one of them.

[Gandor]

Shane,
The first 301 redirect to "redirect.asp?page=xxx.asp" is our page to let our visitors know that the page they are trying to find has been moved and that they'll be know redirected to the new page. That said, putting "301" code on each htm is not an option.

So your saying If I put "301" code on "redirect.asp?page=xxx.asp" page to make it a "301" redirect it won't be SE's NO-NO's?

right now since I'm doing "301" then "302" it's a SE's NO-NO and I can get penalized? Thanks!

[Shane]

How are you showing the user a message and giving them a 301 or 302 redirect? I've never seen a way to do that. Can you PM me a sample URL?

[Gandor]

Shane,
I sent you a PM. Anyways, I show the message to the use once they get redirected to "redirect.asp" page then after 10 seconds they get redirected to the new page.

[chrishirst]

then you must be using meta redirects or javascript.
You cannot write header output (ie Send text to the browser) then send a header with a status code and redirect.

[Dave]

Response.Status "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "URL"

What do you put for "location"?

Cheers,

Dave

[chrishirst]

"Location" is the header name and you change the URL to point to the new destination document.

for example

CODE

response.addheader "Location","http://www.mynewdomain.com/newdirectory/"