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I am working on a website that has permalinks in this form:

example.com/my-content-is-here-123
example.com/another-content-page-234

The numbers at the end represent the page/post unique ID.

I have a lot of backlinks lost because of typos. Probably people wrote the links manually instead of using copy paste.

I can use a 301 redirect method so that each incorrect link is 301 redirected to the correct URL based on that ID. So, if someone would by mistake link to my website with a typo, something like example.com/my-content-is-xxx-123 or even blah-blah-blah-123... it would be 301'd to the correct URL.

This way, I correct every lost inbound link based on that unique ID.

Will this cause any issues in regards to SEO? Because in this way there will be a couple of different URLs created for each post that are 301 redirected. Depending on each case of course. And I don't know how search engines would consider this.

I know that in best practice I should contact the other webmasters and simply ask them to correct it, but there are too may of them.

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    "correct every lost inbound link" - You can presumably only "correct" the link if the ID is still intact. If the ID is still intact then you are presumably still serving the correct content, rather than a 404? If that is the case then the problem would seem to be one of duplicate content (which should be corrected), rather than "lost backlinks"?
    – MrWhite
    Dec 10, 2015 at 16:48

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Redirecting typo URLs does not cause any SEO problems. In fact, I would call it an SEO best practice. It actually helps your SEO.

When somebody creates a broken link to your site due to a typo, users that click can't get to the right page easily without a redirect. Similarly, search engine spiders can't properly attribute the value of that link to your site unless you implement the redirect.

On some of my sites I have software that puts the text of 404 URLs through site search to automatically try to find the correct page for a redirect.

On a side note, I recommend putting the numeric id close to the beginning of URLs rather than at the end. URLs are often truncated for display purposes or split into multiple lines in emails. When the ID is near the beginning, it is much less likely to get cut off. It makes it much easier to redirect when the id is intact.

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No, it won't affect. Google spiders follow HTTP locations which 301 is one of them

It's a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL. A server-side 301 redirect is the best way to ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct page. The 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location. - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en#4

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  • I know it follows them. And, I know it is a good idea to pick an url and redirect the others. However, my question was directed more on this situation in particular. Where, for example one of my urls could get 20 redirected urls. And, what will Google think when he finds around the web 20 or lets exaggerate and say 1000 different urls around the web redirected to a single one. I hope you understand what I mean.
    – ClawDuda
    Dec 10, 2015 at 15:57
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    Ye, its no problem. It's a bot, it will follow the location and submit the final destination url
    – James John
    Dec 10, 2015 at 19:44

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