301 redirects taking a long time to propagate in Google index?

[bernard]

I'm surprised that this is happening.

I've redone one of my sites from a page based to post based and updated some content as I went along, but mostly kept title tags etc.

Google indexes the new post quickly, but doesn't remove the old one, despite it being a 301 redirect. Both are now indexed. That's weird. And I have tried asking for a recrawl through GSC.

Similar experiences?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Google will have to crawl those links and see the 301, and likely see it there for a while before they trust it. I've monitored close enough during these migrations to see that Google often keeps listing the old URL for a while (or even indefinitely if it gets a better CTR) before switching to the new one. I've not seen both indexed at the same time but it makes 100% sense to me.

You haven't told us what time frame you're talking about. If it's been a month I'd wonder if something was wrong. If it's been a couple days, I'd wait.

In my experience, it's usually about Google encountering the redirect multiple times and across enough time to trust that it's on purpose. Same with dropping 404's out of the index, etc. Those can stay for a year or more. You'd think a 301 would be "very purposeful" like a 410 error is, but who knows. Enough people know about 301's now that maybe Google's slower on the take due to the processing that has to go on behind the scenes.

 

[wikibum]

Google will have to crawl those links and see the 301, and likely see it there for a while before they trust it. I've monitored close enough during these migrations to see that Google often keeps listing the old URL for a while (or even indefinitely if it gets a better CTR) before switching to the new one. I've not seen both indexed at the same time but it makes 100% sense to me.

I see the same thing. 301s take a while for Google to trust. I see 404 errors in GSC for urls that are 301 redirected (and the 301 redirect is working correctly). Its been over 3 weeks since the redirects and they are still showing up as errors in GSC lol This happens even after I validate the fixes as well.

You would think that they would figure out that I am telling them a page is a 404 or a 301 every time I validate, but they just don't get it.

 

[bernard]

What's happening now is that Google has deranked the new post when the 301 when through, after a few weeks. It will probably bounce back, but things take a long time. Not a great recommendation for doing the "best practise".