Removing 301 redirect from site root
- by Jon Clements
I'm having a look at a friends website (a fairly old PHP based one) which they've been advised needs re-structuring. The key points being:
URLs should be lower case and more "friendly".
The root of the domain should be not be re-directed.
The first point I'm happy with (and the URLs needed tidying up anyway) and have a draft plan of action, however the second is baffling me as to not only the best way to do it, but also whether it should be done.
Currently http://www.example.com/ is redirected to http://www.example.com/some-link-with-keywords/ using the follow index.php in the root of the Apache2 instance.
<?php
$nextpage = "some-link-with-keywords/";
header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
header( "Status: 301 Moved Permanently" );
header("Location: $nextpage");
exit(0); // This is Optional but suggested, to avoid any accidental output
?>
As far as I'm aware, this has been the case for around three years -- and I'm sorely tempted to advise to not worry about it. It would appear taking off the 301 could:
Potentially affect page ranking (as the 'homepage' would disappear - although it couldn't disappear because of the next point...)
Introduce maintainance issues as existing users would still have the re-directed page in their cache
Following the above, introduce duplicate content
Confuse Google/other SE's as to what the homepage actually is now
I may be over-analysing this but I have a feeling it's not as simple as removing the 301 from the root, and 301'ing the previous target to the root...
Any suggestions (including it's not worth it) are sincerely appreciated.
