Does redirected traffic still contribute to SEO?

[Russell_Chua]

My company recently rebranded with a new website (and comparatively lower authority). We've built a bunch of backlinks for our old website, which now redirect to the new one, and I was wondering if these still contribute to SEO? Is there a difference in the SEO effect of a direct link versus a redirected one?

[effectdigital]

Yes, there is a difference - but it is variable.

If you have links pointing to a redirect which:

1) chains (redirects stringing together)

2) is not a 301

3) lands on a page with highly dissimilar content (in machine terms, think Boolean string similarity), to Google's last active ache of the redirecting URL

... then your links are likely to be nullified, or they won't help you very much

Use redirects that point to (mathematically / %-wise) similar content. Use 301s, don't chain your redirects

If you meet all of these conditions, then some links can continue to supply a decent amount of ranking authority, even through redirects