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After running a report on using SEOprofiler, I receive notices (not warnings or errors) for every page on my website that a 301 re-direct exists.

For example:

/?p=3460 301 redirects. The URL redirects to the other page /physical-therapy-at-home/ by using the HTTP status code 301 which tells the search engines that the redirect is permanent.

/?p=925 301 redirects. The URL redirects to the other page /physical-therapy/ by using the HTTP status code 301 which tells the search engines that the redirect is permanent.

/?p=3367 301 redirects The URL redirects to the other page /synergy-staff/ by using the HTTP status code 301 which tells the search engines that the redirect is permanent.

If I tested my website using Microsofts IIS SEO, the site analysis gives me multiple messages like the following:

The link to /?p=62 has resulted in HTTP redirection to /company-background-synergy-health/.

Search engines can only pass page rankings and other relevant data through a single redirection hop. Using unnecessary redirects can have a negative impact on page ranking.

Can you advise if this is normal for a WordPress site or if a problem potentially exists?

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  • This is normal WP behaviour and you can safely ignore these messages
    – kero
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:29
  • It is normal - but all of the links both on your site and on other sites, that point to pages on your site, should link to the pretty permalink version. If SEOprofiler is finding /?p=id style links, you should find out where those are and update them if possible to maximize SEO. Also make sure your pages include a canonical URL to further reinforce which version is the correct one.
    – WebElaine
    Dec 6, 2017 at 20:54
  • The advice that search engines only pass rankings through single redirects is wrong. Search engines (and modern browsers) follow chains of redirects. I wouldn't worry about a few chained redirects. You won't have any problems with redirect chains that are 4 or 5 redirects long.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Dec 21, 2017 at 9:58

1 Answer 1

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That is normal for Wordpress. A redirect is actual better for SEO than a 404 Not Found or other error.

What you should be doing though is sharing the links with their final URL, not the post number since those links are direct and more meaningful to users. In any case, the /?p=#### addresses are kind of a constant in WordPress, while you can pretty much change the user-friendly ones at will.

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