DO REDIRECTS STILL PASS AUTHORITY &/OR RELEVANCE TO THE TARGET SITE?

Our hypothesis is that implementing a 302 redirect from a domain with a stable ranking and an established backlink graph can significantly influence the search engine results page (SERP) performance of the target site by transferring relevance or authority. Specifically, we theorize that the removal of such a redirect will result in a measurable decline in keyword rankings for the target site, thereby isolating and demonstrating the impact of the redirect’s authority and relevance contributions. Conversely, we hypothesize that the reintroduction of the redirect, or the application of similar redirects under controlled conditions, could potentially recover or even enhance the target site’s SERP positions, provided that the redirects are executed in a manner that is deemed trustworthy by Google. This hypothesis underscores the notion that not all redirects carry the same weight in Google’s evaluation, with the underlying quality and history of the redirecting domain playing a crucial role in the outcome. Through this experiment, we aim to uncover more nuanced insights into the specific attributes of redirects that Google favors, thereby enabling a more strategic and effective use of redirects in SEO campaigns.

We have an exciting new test for you this week, which is something that the industry has possibly overlooked over the years as the algorithm has developed and things have changed… Redirects!

Now to be clear, this is for testing purposes only and is not to be taken as gospel for you to start changing up your entire SEO process. But of course, our findings are leading to more tests and the end goal is to utilize redirects positively in our campaigns. So the big question is, do redirects still work?

The biggest problem with that question is that not all redirects are equal. The website history and backlink graph play a major role in how Google will perceive any redirect.

But what if we were to remove those variables by simply picking a domain that had a redirect, with stable rankings, and we simply remove the redirect? Depending on the fluctuations and rankings it would tell us how that specific redirect was affecting that site which would allow us to reverse engineer what types of things Google could or could not be looking for in a redirect.

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