301 redirects - Matt Cutts advises caution

Take this however you want folks. Here is a link to digital point that contains conversation about a webshow that Matt Cutt's was on tonight. One of the guys saves parts of it as mp3, but there is a link to the site where the entire show should be archived soon.

Basically, Cutts advises caution with using 301 redirects at risk of both places being deleted.

Cool but post up the link

Originally Posted by ADM

Cool but post up the link

ah crap, it was late... sorry.

Link to DigitalPoint thread - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=54970

Link to location of webshow - http://www.webmasterradio.fm/episode....php?showId=16

This may not really be anything, but I don't now a whole lot about it and since I heard about it I figured I would pass it along to you guys.

Originally Posted by sportsoutlaw

Basically, Cutts advises caution with using 301 redirects at risk of both places being deleted.

I listened to the whole show and must have missed that somehow. What point in the show was that and do remember what he said?

You sure you're not thinking of what he said about canonicals and the url removal tool?

Ross

I hadn't listened to it when I posted this, and still haven't. The 301 deal was mentioned in that thread so I merely posted it over here to let you guys analyze it.

Most of this stuff is way over my head.

OK, I see what happened. The guy in that thread was making some random comments in a post while listening to the show. He (the guy posting, not Matt) wasn't clear and you took what he said out of context since he didn't really frame it correctly.

Here's the scoop:

Matt Cutts of Google did NOT advise caution when you use a 301 redirect. He did not say that a 301 might get both pages kicked out.

Matt advised caution when you use the Google url removal tool on a page WITH a 301 because an incorrect 301 redirect might get both pages kicked out.

Matt was talking about a couple different things at the same time. The discussion was about:
1) the Google url removal tool, powerful so be careful whenever you use it
2) Google's occasional inability to properly handle different urls that resolve to the same document (like http://www.domain.com, http://domain.com, http://www.domain.com/index.html, http://domain.com/index.html)
3) Big Daddy will do better at handling this situation

Matt said that some webmasters have not been careful when Google had confused the pages (like a page with and without the www) and the webmaster tried to force a fix by doing a 301 on one and using the Google url removal tool to kill one of the documents.

Matt said some webmasters had inadvertantly killed both pages when they made a mistake in this process.

So Matt was saying that the url removal tool should be used with caution if you're trying to use it to fix the with/without www problem.

It was more like...

"If Google screws something up, make sure you are accurate when you try to tell us how to fix it because you could make things worse."

Good luck, Ross

Aha, that is why I don't jump to make claims about things on various forums like so many people seem to like to do. One missed comment can cause all kinds of craziness.

Just imagine if I had come over here and simply posted " matt cutts just said 301 redirects shouldn't be used because it will delete both of your sites"

and sadly, somebody out there is probably saying that and people are probably believing it.

Hey Guys, this might be relevant to the 301 topic. Re: submitting sitemaps and vBSEO (Bot fluctuation..)

So if I am clear on this, Matt Cutts did NOT say that 301 redirects would knockout your site. Cool. Anyone have real life experience or examples of what happens when the PR gets transferred to new site?