How much juice do you lose in a 301 redirect?

[CMC-SD]

Our site has a number of, shall we say, unoptimized URLs. I would like to change the URLs to be more relevant; if a page is about red widgets, the URL should be www.domain.com/red-widgets.html, right? I'm getting resistance on this, however, based on the belief that you lose something significant when you 301 an old URL to a new one.

Now, I know that if you have a long chain of redirects, the spiders will stop following at some point, and that is a huge problem. That wouldn't apply if there's only one step in the chain, however. I've also heard that you lose some link juice in a 301, but I'm unsure how serious that problem actually is. Is it small enough that we'd win out in the long run with better-optimized URLs?

[danatanseo]

Arafah, I respectfully disagree with loss of ranking and "link juice" (I hate that term - I prefer "page authority") being a misconception. Matt Cutts himself states that 301-redirects do not pass all the value of the original link. Here's a link to Eric Enge's article/interview with the quote directly from Matt Cutts: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/03/google-confirms-301-redirects-result-in-pagerank-loss.html

[KaneJamison]

Our site has a number of, shall we say, unoptimized URLs. I would like to change the URLs to be more relevant; if a page is about red widgets, the URL should be www.domain.com/red-widgets.html, right?

That's the best way to target that keyword, yes.

I'm getting resistance on this, however, based on the belief that you lose something significant when you 301 an old URL to a new one.

An optimized URL with 301 links is going to be better than a non-optimized URL with the same number of direct links. We don't know the exact loss in link value for a 301 redirect, and we don't know if it changes over time or in different circumstances, so any answer to this questions will be somewhat subjective. That said, I think most other SEOs would opt for Good URL with 301 links, and then they'd proceed to go build new links and change old ones where possible.

A personal guess is that the majority (>90%) of the link value is maintained in 301 redirects, however I couldn't say how it changes over time.

Now, I know that if you have a long chain of redirects, the spiders will stop following at some point, and that is a huge problem. That wouldn't apply if there's only one step in the chain, however. I've also heard that you lose some link juice in a 301, but I'm unsure how serious that problem actually is. Is it small enough that we'd win out in the long run with better-optimized URLs?

Yes, you're better off with better-optimized URLs in most of the cases I've encountered.

[JaredMumford]

If implemented properly, the URL should regain its "pagerank" for whats thats worth. I dont believe that the age of the url will make a difference but the backlinks definitely have at least some effect.  You will want to do your best to have inbounds changed instead of redirecting where feasible.

[CMC-SD]

Thanks! Would we be losing any value by discarding a URL that has been live for multiple years? I've heard that the age of a URL (not a domain) can help a page rank, but I'm not sure I believe that.

[JaredMumford]

You do lose some juice on 301's so obviously the best course is to contact sites that house the link and ask them to change it to the new URL (once the new URL is live, and you would still 301 redirect).  This isnt always easy to do particularly when there are 1000's of backlinks, so it really depends on how feasible an option that is, and how many backlinks you have (are there only 3? then having an optimized URL will probably be more beneficial than leaving the URL unoptimized, even if you cant have the links changed).

As to 'exactly' how much do you lose? I dont think anyone has a definitive answer. But I have worked with websites that 301 redirect almost every page when they migrate to a new platform and the SEO impact is not severe if done properly.

I still recommend mining your backlinks and having their targets chaged (at least for the more authoratative ones).