Using Python To Explain Homepage Redirection To C-Suite (Or Any SEO Best Practise) via @sejournal, @artios_io

If you’re an SEO nonrecreational you mightiness beryllium moving connected a tract that redirects the location leafage to a subdirectory, for illustration redirecting to a state circumstantial mentation of the site. Or, utilizing placeholder contented linking to the main site’s location leafage successful a subdirectory.

In some those cases you could beryllium struggling to person your lawsuit oregon colleagues to travel champion practices. If so, past this nonfiction is for you.

I volition amusement you a mode to pass to C-suite that makes consciousness to them technically and commercially by providing data-driven examples.

To bash this, I volition amusement you however to usage Python to cipher the TIPR of each tract pages to supply a comparative before-and-after script to warrant your requested changes.

We volition cover:

• Hosting Placeholder Pages On The Root and Root Redirects.
• Why The Home Page Should Be Merged With The Root.
• The struggles of communicating the benefits to non-SEO adept leadership.
• Using Python to estimation PageRank uplift.
• Using Python exemplary postulation interaction from PageRank uplift.
• Using A Data-Driven Approach Is More Persuasive To C-Suite.

First of all, let’s sermon wherefore the location leafage should beryllium merged with the root.

Hosting Placeholder Pages On The Root and Root Redirects

Some sites big a placeholder leafage connected the basal URL or, worse, redirect the basal to a subdirectory oregon page. 

Many planetary brands, particularly those successful the manner sector, volition run multi-regional sites wherever each determination store resides successful their determination folder.

For example, if I went to Gucci, I’d expect to find the pursuing stores:

• UK: https://www.gucci.com/uk/en_gb/.
• USA: https://www.gucci.com/us/en/.
• France: https://www.gucci.com/fr/fr/.

…and truthful on.

In Gucci’s case, not lone is determination a determination folder, but there’s besides a connection folder, which is each precise logical.

Because I reside successful London, the root folder https://www.gucci.com/ redirects maine to the UK store.

A tract hunt for Gucci.com (site:gucci.com) shows that the basal folder is indexed and offers a determination store enactment menu.

For galore sites, the basal folder volition permanently redirect to their default oregon astir fashionable determination store.

Why The Home Page Should Be Merged With The Root

Search engines usage authorization (a measurement of a page’s probability of being discovered via hyperlinks) to find their comparative value connected the web. Therefore, the much authorization a leafage has, the higher its fertile presumption imaginable successful the hunt results (SERPs).

Given astir sites accrue the astir links to their basal URL, this is wherever the hunt motor fertile powerfulness resides.

This isn’t perfect for the tract architecture, arsenic it means that each the merchandise listing pages (PLPs) and merchandise statement pages (PDPs) are an other hop distant from the location page.

This other hop sounds small; however, it’s not inconsequential, arsenic we’ll exemplify present and quantify later.

Let’s visualize the nexus graph of sites enactment mounting their location leafage successful the basal folder.

Below is simply a existent tract wherever its basal URL has a page-level authorization people (according to Ahrefs) of 40 PR, redirecting to its main English connection store /en (21 PR) earlier linking to each of the PLPs and PDPs.

Image from author, April 2024

Naturally, each of the pages (blue) via the logo volition nexus to their determination store location leafage (for their users) and different determination location pages (shown successful pink) alternatively of linking the basal URL, which artificially inflates the worth of the determination location page.

Note the tract pages successful tract level 2 (which are straight linked from the location page) person a leafage level standing of 19 PR and the different pages successful tract level 3 person 18 PR.

What besides happens is that the pages are 1 measurement removed from the basal URL and frankincense don’t person each of the authority.

Think of the deterioration of philharmonic dependable prime erstwhile making copies of a transcript alternatively of a transcript of the archetypal music.

That’s the acquisition your tract is offering to hunt engines erstwhile they’re trying to measure the comparative value of your tract content!

If the stores linked to the basal URL, this would beryllium undesirable arsenic it would make a load of redirects sitewide, further wasting the organisation of authority.

The champion signifier attack would beryllium to chopped retired the mediate antheral by merging the basal with the location leafage truthful that each tract pages are 1 little hop removed, arsenic shown below:

Image from author, April 2024

Following the merge of the location leafage and the basal URL, the location leafage PR is present 72, which is overmuch person to the site’s domain authorization of 75 DR, and each of the pages got an further 1 PR, expanding their imaginable to rank.

The Struggles Of Communicating The Benefits To Non-SEO Expert Leadership

To a non-SEO adept audience, specified arsenic your selling and IT colleagues, this each sounds alternatively world and abstract – and astir apt rather unbelievable.

Even if you utilized the diagrams above, they’re people much funny successful the postulation impact, if not the gross implications.

They astir apt person nary thought of Google’s PageRank metric for measuring leafage authorization and don’t attraction unless you supply the numbers.

Using Python To Estimate PageRank Uplift

Fortunately, with the powerfulness of information science, we tin marque those analyzable calculations successful Python to estimation the caller PR values pursuing the champion signifier determination to the basal URL.

Take the PageRank formula:

As explained successful The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine by the founders of Google:

“We presume leafage A has pages T1…Tn which constituent to it (i.e., are citations). The parameter d is simply a damping origin which tin beryllium acceptable betwixt 0 and 1. We usually acceptable d to 0.85. … Also C(A) is defined arsenic the fig of links going retired of leafage A.

Note that the PageRanks signifier a probability organisation implicit web pages, truthful the sum of each web pages’ PageRanks volition beryllium one.”

The main gist of the look is that the magnitude of PageRank a URL (A) has is chiefly determined by the PageRank (PR Ti) of the pages linking to it (Ti) and the fig of interior links connected those pages C(Ti).

The Python mentation of the PageRank look whitethorn beryllium recovered here.

As a thought experimentation equipped with the cognition of the supra formula, we’d expect:

• The caller location leafage to payment from having each pages nexus to the basal URL (PR Ti) shared on with the different outbound interior links C(Ti).
• All of the tract pages to payment from their much almighty genitor URL (the caller merged location leafage successful the basal URL).

With the supra successful mind, each we request to bash present is recalculate the sitewide interaction of merging the /en folder with the basal URL connected the full site, which is done successful respective phases:

• Calculate TIPR of each tract pages: As explained earlier successful what information subject tin bash for tract architectures, portion tract auditing bundle gives the comparative PageRank internally, this needs to beryllium combined with the outer PageRank from the net utilizing nexus quality tools similar Ahrefs.
• Calculate the new TIPR of the caller location page: i.e. /en merged oregon migrated with the basal URL.
• Calculate the new TIPR of each consequent and remaining pages connected the website.

As shown successful the diagrams supra the caller champion signifier configuration shows the caller TIPR values of each pages.

Once the TIPR calculation steps are followed, your adjacent occupation is to construe the method benefits of SEO into the commercialized interaction to unafraid buy-in from your colleagues.

One result metric to exemplary would beryllium the integrated hunt postulation arsenic a relation of TIPR. With capable information points (say 10,000), this tin beryllium achieved utilizing instrumentality learning (ML).

Your input would beryllium the dataset anterior to the TIPR recalculation wherever you’d provender the TIPR file and the hunt clicks (presumably joined connected from Google Search Console).

The illustration beneath visualizes the narration betwixt TIPR and clicks.

Image from author, April 2024

The bluish enactment is an approximate exemplary indicating however galore much clicks a leafage would person with an summation successful portion PageRank.

Mathematicians are fond of saying, “All models are incorrect but immoderate are useful.” However, the subject tin beryllium rather persuasive successful providing immoderate credibility to your forecasted uplifts utilizing the Python predict() relation utilizing your ML model. You tin find an illustration here.

In the supra case, we spot that up to 20 TIPR, there’s a 0.35 visits per period postulation uplift per page, and beyond 20 TIPR, it’s 0.75 visits.

Using A Data-Driven Approach Is More Persuasive To C-Suite

This mightiness not dependable similar much. However, aggregated crossed the hundreds of thousands of indexable URLs, we forecasted an further 200,000 successful monthly postulation for 1 client.

This forecast gave them the assurance and willingness to yet travel done connected the repeated proposal of mounting the location leafage to root, which the institution received from galore SEO consultants.

The quality is the quantification, some technically and commercially.

By combining TIPR and applying the PageRank look to simulate a before-and-after script for your technical SEO recommendation – successful this case, mounting the basal URL arsenic the location leafage – your SEO is data-driven and, much importantly, overmuch much persuasive.

Not lone technically but besides commercially, which volition assistance you instrumentality much of your SEO recommendations and, hopefully, beforehand your career.

That aside, taking a data-driven attack tin besides assistance you sense-check your champion signifier recommendations based connected ideas you’ve work online.

It’s existent contiguous arsenic it was 20 years ago: The champion SEO pros perpetually trial ideas alternatively than unquestioningly travel champion signifier dogma.

More resources:

• URL Redirects For SEO: A Technical Guide
• Using Python + Streamlit To Find Striking Distance Keyword Opportunities
• The Complete Technical SEO Audit Workbook

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock