301 Redirect Governance

301 redirect passes ~99% PageRank dari URL lama ke baru. Tapi ada cara untuk membocorkan kredit atau malah harm ranking. Ini governance yang saya pakai.

Kapan 301 aman dipakai

• Restructure URL taxonomy (slug, kategori).Tambahkan redirect untuk setiap URL lama ke baru.
• Consolidate HTTP ke HTTPS.Wajib. .htaccess atau server level.
• Consolidate www ke non-www (atau sebaliknya).Pilih satu canonical.
• Merger dua domain (akuisisi).Redirect URL-per-URL setelah canonical schema migrated.
• Remove seasonal/campaign page.Redirect ke page terkait, bukan 404 kalau ada ekuitas.
• Remove case study client yang di-NDA.Redirect ke page list case study.

Kapan 301 berbahaya

• Redirect massal ke homepage. Google detect pattern dan ignore PageRank transfer.
• Redirect chain > 2 hop. Crawler mungkin stop. PageRank decay per hop.
• Redirect ke halaman yang different intent. User-unfriendly, bounce rate naik.
• Redirect irrelevant. Redirect /produk-pompa/ ke /about/ = lose authority signal.
• Redirect looping. A→B→A = crawler abort.

Redirect chain rules

Audit redirect

1. Run crawl (Screaming Frog atau similar)

   Identify all 3xx responses.

2. Flag redirect chain > 1 hop

   Filter by response chain length.

3. Update .htaccess untuk direct redirect

   Skip intermediate hop. A→B→C → A→C.

4. Test 5-10 sample URL

   curl -I dengan -L flag. Verify single 301 to final URL.

5. Monitor Google Search Console coverage

   4 minggu setelah update. Tracking PageRank transfer.

Template .htaccess untuk Rumahweb

# Redirect rules
RewriteEngine On

# URL lama ke URL baru
RewriteRule ^old-path/?$ /new-path/ [R=301,L]

# Pattern-based redirect
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)$ /essays/$1 [R=301,L]

# Delete parameter
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^ref=newsletter$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1? [R=301,L]

# HTTPS enforcement
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]