If you remove a 301-re-direct, will there be a corresponding drop in traffic?

[nicole.healthline]

We built a better version of a search results page and re-directed from the old search results page to the landing page, and are seeing a huge uptick in traffic. Wondering if we remove the re-direct and 404 the original search results page if we'll see a drop in traffic.

I ran the search results page through open site explorer and Google Webmaster tools, and there aren't many links, but the search results page used to see quite a bit of of traffic over the past couple of years.

[BrightHealth]

Why fix it if it isn't broken?

Meaning, why do you want to remove the redirects? I see little benefit from serving a 404 page in stead of redirecting to a better suited landing page.

[BrianJGomez]

I would imagine that you would see drop n traffic if you began to receive traffic immediately a upon creating the 301. I would leave it in place unless theres a really compelling reason (that I can't think of) to remove it.

[nicole.healthline]

I understand the "don't fix it if its broken" -but, I am wondering if there is any documentation about removing 301 re-directs after the proper URL is indexed.

[BrightHealth]

If you are seeing a large increase in traffic as the result of the redirects, then removing them will reverse that shift in traffic.

If it's SE referrals from long tail keywords going through the redirect, then you're going to definitely feel the hit from moving to 404's. Sure, your newly created pages may replace that traffic eventually, but the 301's are helping them do that now. Just the traffic standpoint is one reason, but passing any and (dang near all) of the link equity through to the new pages in the process.