301 Redirect WordPress
301 Redirects helps you manage and create 301, 302, and 307 redirects for your WordPress site, improving SEO and visitor experience. 301 Redirects is easy to use with a user-friendly interface. It’s perfect for new sites or repairing links after reorganizing your existing WordPress content, or when your site has content that expires and you wish to avoid sending visitors to a 404 error page.
What is Redirect WordPress?
The most popular email content redirect manager for WordPress. It makes it simple to manage 301 redirects, monitor 404 issues, and generally take care of any remaining loose ends on your website. This might lower errors and raise the rating of your website. the WordPress admin menu and then click on ‘Website Redirect’.
What is a URL Redirect?
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. It is a way to quickly let browsers know that the requested page or post has moved or been replaced.
Some other common redirects include:
- 302 Found
- 303 See Other
- 304 Not Modified
- 307 Temporary Redirect
- 308 Permanent Redirect
The same thing happens on the web. The information is still there but on a new page. A WordPress URL redirect tells search engine web crawlers where that information has now been placed.
3 Types of Redirects
There are three basic types of redirects.
- A 301 redirect is used when a web page has been permanently moved.
- A 302 redirect is used for a temporary webpage move.
- A meta refresh tells a browser to refresh a site after a given number of seconds.
A 301 Redirect is the most common type and signals a page has moved.
Most redirects are 301’s. This redirect handles content moves to different pages and URLs on or off the site, perhaps even to a new website.
E-commerce sites use a lot of 301 redirects as they move products around to different parts of the website. For example, a new product might be featured on a page for new products. After a few weeks, it gets moved to another page where it’s featured with similar or complementary products.
Several WordPress redirect plugins can simplify this process. These plugins will also work on email marketing best practices as well.
You’ll see four settings — here’s how to configure them:
- Source URL — enter the original URL that you want to redirect. I.e. when someone visits this page, they’ll be redirected to a different page.
- Query Parameters — leave this as the default.
- Target URL — this is the new URL that you want to take visitors to. I.e. if someone visits the source URL, they’ll be taken to this URL.
- Group — this just helps you organize your redirects. It’s fine to leave it as the default. Or, you can use the Groups tab to create a new group if you want to organize your different redirects.
A 302 Redirect Indicates a Temporary Move
A 302 redirect is used for a few different reasons:
- During page updates.
- While conducting A/B tests of pages presenting the same information in different ways.
- While clients or higher-ups are reviewing a page, you don’t want it to be included in your site’s search ranking.
Meta Refresh May Be Spam!
Most meta refreshes appear to be spam. These are the ones that say if you aren’t redirected within five seconds, click this link. If the website has good security, it will block the spam and load the information you were looking for.
Sometimes a business may want to use a meta refresh to explain that a familiar website has been changed, particularly if the company the website represents has been sold.
Why Implement a Redirect Command?
Redirect commands are necessary to tell search engines that a page has moved. Here are a couple of reasons this would happen:
- A new domain name, common when a business is sold or otherwise undergoes a name change,
- Changing the organization on a website is common as a website and businesses grow.
- Redirects can also help search engines understand which page is the real “expert” source when several pages owned by the same entity have the same information.
- If there’s been a typo in a printed ad campaign or email, a redirect on the accidental page solves the problem!
eCommerce sites often have pages with duplicate content, but only one page should be the one for search engines to recognize as the “expert” to list on search engine result pages (SERPs). That page should be identified as the “canonical” page.
Or let’s say you’re running several advertisements using blogs, video, text messages, and other marketing techniques. A redirect from each of these sources to a single page where people can get more information, order a product or service, or otherwise answer the CTA makes it easier to track different ad campaigns’ effectiveness.
Finally, redirects are pretty much-protected SEO. Having the proper link will have little to no impact on “link juice.” Link justice is the authority that the original page carries with search engines.
