303 redirect

[android_lyon]

Hi,

303 redirect is a good thing or not ?

I have a homepage in 2 languages FR and EN > mywebsite.com/fr/ and mywebsite.com/en/.

A 303 redirect is on mywebsite.com to mywebsite.com/fr/.

Thanks

D.

[WesleySmits]

A 303 won't send 'link juice' that means that all the value you website gets on mywebsite.com won't be send to mywebsite.com/fr/. You should use a 301 instead.

[BlueprintMarketing]

affect SERPs the 303 redirect remains fairly unknown because it is rarely used.

I came across a website linking to one of my sites with a 303 but I could not find a definitive answer of whether or not this link passed any PageRank. Information online about this was scarce and the only information I found was from people saying that only 301 redirects pass PageRank.

When I checked the status code for 303 redirect at w3.org it was “See other” . The description reads as follows:

“The new URI is not a substitute reference for the originally requested resource. The 303 response MUST NOT be cached, but the response to the second (redirected) request might be cacheable.”

This sounds very black and white and I my initial guess was that Google does not flow PR for 303 redirects. But I was curious, how was Google treating 303 redirects?

I set up an experiment to check how Google was handling the 303. Results below:

*Note: The translation for this keyword is NSFW

Google will show the search result with the URI that is initially requested. It will then show the Page Title and Meta Description (or other descriptive snippet) for the redirected page but it will show the URI from the redirecting page. It is caching the text from the final page but assigning it to the requested page.

How Google caches 303 redirects

Page A 303 redirects to Page B

Title: Page B

URI: Page A

Meta Description: Page B

Since page B does not rank for this keyword it is confirmed that the 303 redirect does not flow PR.

How did I set this test up?

1. I chose a rare keyword that had very few pages ranking for it.
2. On www.a.com I created two pages containing the keyword with the same exact content (www.a.com/a.htm .com/b.htm)
3. One page (www.a.com/a.htm) was linked to internally multiple times
4. One page  (www.a.com/b.htm) was linked to externally with 303 redirects only from two domains (including www.marketingchip.com)
5. The 303 redirects were created on the external pages (www.marketingchip.com/special-doors.html -> 303 -> www.a.com/b.htm)

After a few days neither www.a.com/a.htm nor www.a.com/b.htm appear in the results. However the number one listing for this keyword was forwww.marketingchip.com/special-doors.html but the meta title and the meta description are taken from www.a.com/b.htm. I acquired the information from this URL and would agree with Wesley definitely 301 redirect the link to not use a 303 and less you are trying to accomplish something similar to what it's shown above or in Wesley's comment. http://www.marketingchip.com/seo-experiments/how-does-a-303-redirect-affect-seo/ Sincerely, Thomas

303-redirect-results2.gif

[WesleySmits]

Very descriptive answer. Love that you describe your entire experiment.
Thank you for this extra bit of information.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Wesley & D.,

I really appreciate the what you said & did however I did not administer the experiment or create content.

Thank you for the kind words however I did not do the work for this I only for the used it as a reference to describe the situation.

I am glad it helped,

All the best,

Thomas