What are the impact of doing URL Rewriting instead of 301 redirections whille optimizing a blog?

webit40

In WordPress, with the ALL In ONE SEO pluggingm we've optimze the permalinks to show more keewords in the URL'. What can be the impact?

CoreyNorthcutt

I'm not 100% familiar with all that ALL IN ONE SEO PACK is doing there, but usually when you use mod_rewrite (most commonly that I've seen amongst SEO's to rewrite to 'www'), it IS a 301 redirect.

ShaMenz

Hi Alexandre,

You will need to look at the code in the .htaccess file generated by All in One SEO to see whether the plugin is just using URL rewriting or creating 301 redirects. As far as I am aware, that particular plugin does not have an option to manually stipulate when you wish to create a 301, but the only sure way is to check the code.

You will need to go into your wordpress /blog directory and download the .htaccess file, then open it in a text editor (like notepad). This is a separate .htaccess file, specifically relating to what happens within your wordpress installation.The one in the root folder for your site will not tell you what you are wanting to know.

I don't use All In One SEO as I prefer the Yoast plugin, but typically, what you might expect to see is code that looks something like this:

BEGIN WordPress

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule>

END WordPress

The key to identifying whether the plugin is using standard URL rewrites or creating a 301 Redirect is to look at the very last part of the Rule - the part that is enclosed in square brackets [ ]

A plain vanilla flavored standard URL Rewrite Rule will end with [L]

If the Rule is creating a 301 (Permanent) Redirect, it will end with [R=301,L]

and for a 302 (Temporary) Redirect, it will end with [R=302,L]

As far as your question, which I understand to be asking essentially, "what is the difference" between the two:

A standard URL Rewrite is simply instructing the server that any request for a certain URL should be served a different URL. As far as the search engine is concerned, nothing changes. It is simply used to change the ugly URL to a pretty URL (in your case one that contains the keywords you want).
A 301 redirect serves the alternative URL, but also sends a signal to the search engine that the URL requested has been permanently replaced with the one that is served. This indicates to the search engine that the requested URL should be removed from the index and replaced with the URL that is served. A 301 redirect also signals to the search engine that most of the link value being passed to the requested URL should now be passed to the URL that replaces it in the index.

Hope that helps,

Sha

ShaMenz