Erasing the Past (do the 301)
Sure, the digital landscape is littered with detritus. I think my original geocities website is still even floating out there, complete with Java applets, my resume, and a link to my thesis about Jazz Autobiography. And the world should really be spared all that - it is the kind of memorabilia posted with half baked intention that gives the internet a bad rap.
But at the same time as we've cultivated this "data neglect", mostly through underhwelming apathy, we've also become a culture of deleters. Perhaps it is sheer rage that allows us to delete emails we've never read, or perhaps it is simply a philosophy of good old pragmatism - when the shrubs are a little overgrown you trim them, but if they are wildly overgrown you take a machete to them.
That's the idea.
So is it any surprise that companies routinely skip the step of creating 301 redirects when creating a new website? I suggest it goes beyond lack of knowledge - most experienced web builders with a little Search Engine Optimization knowledge know about 301 redirects - I think it also belies this new change in attitude towards information. Digital bits themselves have little material value, and this is fostered by the overgrowth and instant repetition of content and ideas. This is a cookie cutter approach towards information and users that further cheapens things.
Creating a new website without creating 301 (permanent) redirects from the old content paths to the new paths is equivalent to throwing all the search engine equity you had down the drain. If that's not bad enough - assuming you at least remove the old site files, if you instead use a different kind of redirect, you may even be penalized (all engines on reverse).
Do the 301s.
But at the same time as we've cultivated this "data neglect", mostly through underhwelming apathy, we've also become a culture of deleters. Perhaps it is sheer rage that allows us to delete emails we've never read, or perhaps it is simply a philosophy of good old pragmatism - when the shrubs are a little overgrown you trim them, but if they are wildly overgrown you take a machete to them.
That's the idea.
So is it any surprise that companies routinely skip the step of creating 301 redirects when creating a new website? I suggest it goes beyond lack of knowledge - most experienced web builders with a little Search Engine Optimization knowledge know about 301 redirects - I think it also belies this new change in attitude towards information. Digital bits themselves have little material value, and this is fostered by the overgrowth and instant repetition of content and ideas. This is a cookie cutter approach towards information and users that further cheapens things.
Creating a new website without creating 301 (permanent) redirects from the old content paths to the new paths is equivalent to throwing all the search engine equity you had down the drain. If that's not bad enough - assuming you at least remove the old site files, if you instead use a different kind of redirect, you may even be penalized (all engines on reverse).
Do the 301s.
Labels: seo
posted by Lawrence W. Gallick at
5:36 AM
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