What are the SEOmoz-suggested best practices for limiting the number of 301 redirects for a given site?

[roush]

I've read some vague warnings of potential problems with having a long list of 301 redirects within an htaccess file.  If this is a problem, could you provide any guidance on how much is too much?  And if there is a problem associated with this, what is that problem exactly?

[DanDeceuster]

This is no problem I have ever heard of. I wouldn't worry about it, 301 when you need to.

[Hondaspeder]

The problem has to do with every page loading a big .htaccess file, therefore slowing down the speed of the server. I probably wouldn't exceed 25, but sometimes you have no choice. Sometimes the PR is more important than the loss in speed.

I'm sure someone can answer this with a more official response, but that's my understanding of it.

Just try to stay away from any fishy looking redirects, as big daddy G will penalize you big time for stuff like that.

[KeriMorgret]

You do lose a little juice with each redirect, so you don't want to be redirecting the same URL multiple times. The potential problems include slowing down the site as well as increasing chance for errors the more entries you put into your file. There are times when it just can't be helped, and it's much better to have the redirects there than a site with a ton of 404s.