Change 302 redirect into 301 for https://gitlab.com/ > https://about.gitlab.com/
@jarv and @ahanselka who can help with this?
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Problem: Google Search results are now directing all searches for [gitlab] to https://gitlab.com/. This has created a -22% dip in organic search traffic to our marketing site subdomain https://about.gitlab.com/* and now NO traffic from Organic Google searches is being sent to the marketing homepage https://about.gitlab.com/. This negatively impacts our branding and marketing control of our site in Google, our ability to measure marketing traffic to the site (we don't track https://gitlab.com/*), and ability to provide information to existing customers about new features and releases (as they will not see our homepage when using google as a navigational search).
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What changed? Google was previously treating the 301 like a 302, but now is showing results as if we were temporarily redirecting from gitlab.com/ > about.gitlab.com/ . This change in redirect handling occurred at the end of July.
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Requested solution: Can we change that 302 from https://gitlab.com/ > https://about.gitlab.com/ into a 301 and give Google the correct instructions about what our canonical URL is? This will recapture that traffic that is now sending organic marketing visits into the product site.
More details
In the last two weeks, organic Google traffic to our main marketing page about.gitlab.com has decreased to 0 as of 8/4/2018
Organic search traffic to the about.gitlab.com subdomain is down -22%
@williamchia and @shanerice please clarify if needed.