Nemanja
Premium Member
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2012
- Messages
- 324
- Points
- 28
I have sites still carrying redirect rules from migrations that happened years ago, pointing away from URLs nobody has linked to since. Google's line has always been to keep a 301 in place for at least a year, and after that the consolidation has happened and the rule is mostly there for humans with old bookmarks.
The case for leaving them is that removing one turns a live path into a 404 and you cannot always see what still points at it. Old forum posts, a PDF someone circulated, a newsletter that still gets opened. The case for cleaning up is that these files only grow, chains form when a redirected URL later gets redirected again, and by year three nobody remembers why half the lines exist.
Where I have actually cleaned up, what I trusted was server logs rather than a link tool. If the old path was still getting real requests in the last few months it stayed, and if it had not been touched in a year it went.
Does anyone genuinely retire these, or is the honest answer that the file just keeps growing until a migration forces the issue?
The case for leaving them is that removing one turns a live path into a 404 and you cannot always see what still points at it. Old forum posts, a PDF someone circulated, a newsletter that still gets opened. The case for cleaning up is that these files only grow, chains form when a redirected URL later gets redirected again, and by year three nobody remembers why half the lines exist.
Where I have actually cleaned up, what I trusted was server logs rather than a link tool. If the old path was still getting real requests in the last few months it stayed, and if it had not been touched in a year it went.
Does anyone genuinely retire these, or is the honest answer that the file just keeps growing until a migration forces the issue?
