With this article we want to explain to you in an entertaining way and step by step what a redirect is, what kind of redirects we can do and what is the best method to do a 301 redirect without harming your organic positioning. Let’s start!
The first thing we are going to do is start with the 301 redirect definition and the explanation of different types to do on our website.
What is a 301 redirect?
When we talk about a 301 redirect we refer to a command that allows both users who arrive at a URL and Google to be sent from one page to another automatically and permanently.
By exampleif we make a 301 redirection of the URL https:///agencia-seo/ indicating that it redirects to https:///agencia-seo-madrid/, when a user or search robot wants to review the page /agencia-seo/, they will be directly redirected to /agencia-seo-madrid/.
There are different ways to generate 301 redirects, here is an example of how to do it from page to page in htaccess:
Redirect 301 /old-page/ https://yourdomain.com/new-page/
Types of web redirects
301 redirects
A 301 redirect is a command that allows us to send, both users and robots of different search engines, from one web page to another automatically and permanently.
302 redirects
A 302 redirect is a command that allows us to send both users and robots from different search engines from one web page to another automatically and temporarily, that is, for a limited time.
In conclusion, the main action of both redirects is to send users from one page to another, the only and main difference in use is the timing with which the action is performed.
By example, if you have made a new web page for your business and you have also changed the domain, you are interested in doing a 301 redirect from the old to the new so as not to lose the positioning that you had already generated. On the other hand, if this redesign was temporary and you were planning to use that domain in a short period of time, you should do a 302 redirect.
What is 301 redirect used for?
Basically, this redirect type allows us to:
- Keep the Authority of the links pointing to the old URL in the new URL.
- Improve user experience (you won’t encounter 404 errors).
One of the ways that Google has to assess the optimization of our page is the user experience, so put yourself in their place. What would you think of a page with a high bounce rate, that is abandoned at the moment and that does not lead anywhere else? Think about what you do when you get to a page that throws a Error 404. Exactly: you leave.
This scenario is avoidable. With a 301 redirect, we can send a user a URL that we no longer use or that is old, the one that we really want them to see automatically. In the same waywe’re telling Google that our good URL is the one we marked with the 301 redirect. Thanks to this, users do not have that unpleasant experience of arriving at a page that does not exist.
But there is still more. The 301 redirect It allows all the Authority given to us by the links that point to one URL to pass to another. This is especially important as other redirects, such as 302, do not have this feature as it is considered not a permanent but temporary redirect.
When to do a 301 redirect?
There are many situations that you can solve by making a 301 redirect, more than you can even think about. To analyze them correctly it is necessary to know the project, its nature and conditions. Even so, there are some occasions in which it is almost always necessary to make a 301:
👉 1# Domain changes
This is one of the most common reasons why you should do a 301 redirect on a website. There are many reasons why you may want to do a domain-to-domain redirect:
- Change your brand name.
- You have purchased an expired domain.
- Other causes motivated by the improvement of SEO traffic.
👉 2# Landing pages
If on your website you create landing pages or landing pages with offers or for specific products, you may want to transfer the strength achieved to other similar products. In this case, you can choose to make a 301 redirection of that landing that is no longer in use or is outdated by the new product.
The objective of making the 301 redirect in this case is to transmit the authority of the old page and thus make it easier for the new page to position.
👉 3# Content update
In websites that already have some experience, it is necessary to carry out content audits. The objective of these audits is to know what works, what does not and to see possible improvements.
It’s common to reuse and merge content that isn’t working into new articles and pages or directly remove content that isn’t useful. During the process, it is common to make 301 redirects in order not to lose links and transfer authority to content that has already been created and that works.
👉 4# URL structure changes
During the evolution of a website, it is normal for some change to be made to the structure of the URL. Imagine that when you created your website you left the categories of the products or the blog and now it generates excessively long URLs.
In this case you can modify the URL, but you must make a 301 redirection to the new URL structure, otherwise you will lose the organic positioning obtained so far and you will generate .
👉 5# Duplicate Content – Cannibalizations
It is possible that during the content audit you find that you have a lot of duplicate content or that you are attacking keywords with different pages. To solve these problems, it is common to make 301 redirects to the most complete content or to the best positioned content and, if necessary, improve it to respond more fully to the user’s search intention.
👉 6# Discontinued Products
In online stores it is normal for there to be variations of products and when these disappear they generate 404 errors. Sometimes, there are products that achieve great organic visibility or have been closely linked in such a way that they have gained a lot of authority.
We cannot leave these types of products abandoned in a 404 error. We have to make a 301 redirection to a similar product that is interesting in terms of economic margin and sales, or failing that, to the category to which the product belongs (provided that there isn’t one like it).
How to do a 301 redirect?
As almost always happens in WordPress, we have different ways to perform a 301 and 302 redirection. In this case, I am going to focus on showing you how to do it with the Redirection plugin.
301 redirects with the Redirection plugin
My preferred plugin for doing 301 and 302 redirects is . It’s about a free WordPress plugin that has been in the plugin repository for a long time, has a very good rating by users (4.3) and it is usually updated frequently so it is a recommended plugin. To all these features we must add a very important one: it’s easy to use. Here I tell you how:
1. Install the plugin in your WordPress
For this, the first thing you have to do is enter your website, go to the installed plugins > click on «Add new«. Once you are in the WordPress plugin repository, use the search engine and type «Redirection«. Hit install and then activate.
The plugin that you must install is the following, you may see more, do not get confused:
2. Where is the Redirection plugin located?
To do 301 and 302 redirects with this plugin you have to go to its settings. For this you have to go to the section Tools > Redirect. Once inside you will find all the redirections you have made with the plugin, if you just installed it it will be empty.
3. How to do a 301 redirect with the Redirection plugin?
Inside the plugin you will find a button that will say “Add new”, if you click there the options will be displayed so that you can make the redirections you need:
- Source URL: In this section you must add the slug of the URL that you want to redirect, that is, everything that goes after https://yourdomain.com/
- Query parameters: leave this as it is.
- Destination URL: type the full URL you want to redirect the old content to, i.e. https://tudomino.com/new-url/
- Cluster: In this section you can choose which group the redirection belongs to or create a new one.
Once you have completed these sections, review them and hit the “Add redirection”.
4. More advanced redirects with Redirection
Redirection is a very complete plugin and allows you to perform more advanced redirections. With the step 3 we have made a regular 301 redirectbut what happens if we want to carry out other types of redirects such as a 302 or a 307?
In order to do so, you need to click on the gear wheel icon next to the “add redirect” button and more advanced options will be displayed:
- Coincidence: With this option you can choose the way you want the redirect to be generated. It is advisable to keep it as it comes by default.
- When matched: With this option you can choose the action that occurs when a user clicks on the old URL. As in the previous option, it is better to keep it as it comes by default.
- With the HTTP code: In this section you can select the type of redirection you want to perform. The most common option is to keep it in 301but you can also select 302, 307 or 308, although this is for special occasions and advanced users.
Example: From recipes.wordpress.com to recipes.com without missing a single link
Imagine that you have a recipe blog that you have been hosting on wordpress for a long time. Years and years of writing all your recipes will surely have made you have a large blog, with a good community that visits you regularly and, of course, has linked to you from their own blogs. You even rank at the top of Google for very specific recipes that your readers have loved.
With the new year, you decide to give your page a makeover and want to ditch your recipes.wordpress.com URL for something more professional looking, like recipes.com. What happens to all those links that made us have a great base of link building achieved naturally? That, with the 301 redirect, they will automatically point to the new page and, thanks to this, all the Authority that we were getting with our first domain will remain in the new one. As Google takes this aspect very much into account when it comes to helping us position, that 301 will be perfect so that we can continue working on our website without starting from scratch.
Over time, thanks to permanent 301 redirect, the old URL will no longer appear in the results in favor of the new URL, which will be the one that begins to position. Keep in mind…
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