Google and redirected URL's

[nickc]

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I have finally discovered that Google doesn't index URL's that are redirected to another site. This all worked fine prior to all the Google updates which means that I can't use my .co.uk URL but instead have to use the redirected one. Sheeshh. Just in case anyone else is having problems...

Nick

[adore]

Set up 301 redirect to transfer all SEO-profits from one (redirected) domain to the main address.

[HardCoded]

Originally Posted by nickc

I have finally discovered that Google doesn't index URL's that are redirected to another site.

Well...how could it? Redirection implies that nothig is sent to the user agent except a header saying "go look here instead". So there's nothing to index. Why wouldn't Google use the final destination URL in its index, instead of one where, if someone clicks it in the SERP, they're going to have to do two DNS lookups etc etc.

This is basic foundational stuff. You make lots of good original content, you update it all the time, and you make sure you don't do anything that will make spiders choke. That list includes:

1. Don't do redirects. Have permanent, unchanging URLs for all your pages.
2. Don't use JavaScript in your href attributes.
3. Don't have weird characters in URLs, especially ?,&, =, etc.
4. Don't have your content all in Flash or anything else that bots can't read.

...and so on.

And we haven't even done any SEO yet...this is just what you need to do to get any kind of results at all.