301 redirects, efficiency and dynamic URLs

[HiddenPeak]

Hi,

I have 2 301 redirect questions.

Question 1:

I have am working with a designer on the redesign of a website that currently has over 5,000 indexed pages. The majority of these are dynamic URLs from the Stone Locator database. (see below)

http://www.domain.com/storelocator.php?zipcode=91784&page=12

How can I efficiently deal with these pages from an SEO perspective when developing the new site?

Is there a way to do a bulk 301 redirect to a store locator page, for instance?

Question 2:

If a rel=canonical tag has been established on a page (www....), is it necessary to add 301 redirects to all of the other versions on:

• the home page (domain.com , domain.com/index.html, domain.com/index.html, etc.)

• all other pages with those same extensions

?

Thank you for your help!

Erin

[TommyTan]

Hello Again Erin,

1. 301s are used for 2 purposes.  One way is to tell or direct bots to crawl the other page and it will send linkjuices to the new page.  The second way is to redirect visitors to a new page.  If you are bulk redirecting all pages to the home page, it is kind of a waste.  Visitors want to visit a specific page but then you redirect them to the home page?  They will be frustated since it is not what they are looking for and may leave your page.  Bad user experience.  Furthermore, sending link juices to the home page might also be a waste.

The best practice will be redirecting specific pages to a new specific page.  For example, Page A on old domain is about bikes, you want to redirect it to Page A on the new domain about bikes.  One, it will transfer all the old linkjuice on bikes to the new one and visitors are redirected to a page where they want.

2. The canonical tag is for bots to know that you want one version to be crawled over the ones.  301 is kind of for visitors as well and redirecing linkjucies.  Depending on whether you want your visitors to visit only one version, then you might want to use the 301.  Furthermore, if different versions of your page is getting backlinks, maybe use 301 to send the linkjuice back to the canonical page.

Hope this helps.