Timberline Interactive

Any web geeks out there care to stroll down Memory Lane? A return to the good old days of 28K modems, animated gifs and 10-cent paid search clicks?

Just this morning, searching for "Yahoo Search Marketing," I had a blast from the past: The top result in Google is for the URL searchmarketing.yahoo.com/overture.php

Wow, Overture? Yahoo bought Overture six years ago! Everything Overture was rebranded Yahoo Search Marketing ages ago.

What's that URL still doing topping the Google results?

Well, Yahoo's servers have that Overture URL set up not as a permanent 301 redirect, but as a 302 "Temporarily Moved."

So Google has been patiently maintaining the Overture.php file in its index for years, rather than grant Page Rank to the URL that has replaced it, sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing/

Um, people? Six years is not an appropriate duration for a temporary move.

The plot thickens: www.Overture.com returns a 301 permanently moved to www.searchmarketing.yahoo.com/overture.php, which in turn gives a 302 temporarily moved to www.sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing.

Why not just a 301 from Overture to the correct current URL, conveying all the old Overture Page Rank where it belongs?

All right, I understand there is a LOT going on for Yahoos (cost cutting, deal-making -- and just maybe dusting off some resumes). This is way off their radar.

But search geeks like me will also acknowledge that managing server responses is pretty basic blocking and tackling for any company managing a variety of domains, and managing requests for both live and obsolete URLs. Any of us who have re-launched a website on a new platform, for instance, have to properly handle requests for those old pages, so that visitors get where they intend, and the all-important "link juice" flowing from external websites continues to benefit our search rankings.

The lessons here, for anyone who cares about how their domains and pages are ranked by search engines:

• Use 302 Temporary redirects ONLY when you expect the original URL to be back.
• Use 301 Permanent redirects to convey all the Page Rank from an obsolete page or domain to its new address.
• Avoid multiple redirects! Whether it's a 301 or a 302, go straight to the destination in one hop.
• When you see long-obsolete URLs of yours still appearing in search results, get to the bottom of it and fix it with a 301.
• Consult your server error logs and Google Webmaster Tools for 404 (Not Found) and other errors, and fix them with 301s.
• Use a Response Header tool like http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers/ to emulate Googlebot and see how your domains and pages respond to requests.
• Test your domain name with and without the www. Proper redirection to one "canonical" domain, and linking internally to that domain, rather than to its homepage filename (for example www.mydomain.com/index.html) helps the search engines understand that they're all the same page, and the Page Rank should not be diluted among them.

With proper attention to how your server responds to requests, you can assure that Google and the other search engines give your important, current pages the rank they deserve -- and not squander that rank among obsolete junk pages from your ancient history.

Time marches on. Unless, of course, you're a stubborn "temporary" redirect.

(Oh, by the way -- web nostalgia buffs can always visit the old homepages of their favorite websites, courtesy of the Wayback Machine. And for an online history of the internet, check out the Computer History Museum. But let's leave history to the museums, and NOT to 302's!)