The process of sending user from your old website to new website automatically is known as 301 redirect. 301 redirect plays very important role in maintaining and preserving link juice, when you plan to migrate your website from one URL to another. 301 redirect helps to send your visitor at your new URL by visiting old website. If you are new in the field of digital marketing and looking to migrate your website from one URL to another URL, then this article will help you. In this article we will discuss all about 301 redirect, so read this article till the end for detailed information of what is 301 Redirect & How to Use 301 Redirect in SEO.
What is 301 Redirect in SEO?
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect feature which allows and instructs search engines or web browsers to transfer of web address, authority and ranking factor of one website’s URL to another URL. In simple words, when a user enters a specific URL to access the specific website, 301 redirect automatically send them to different URL of that same website. This redirection process allows search engines to seamlessly redirect visitors to the correct page or correct website, reducing the chances of encountering broken links and 404 errors. A 301 redirect automatically send users from old URL to a new URL and it also takes all the web ranking power away from the old URL and puts it into the new URL. The 301 redirect is basically used when a page or website is permanently moved or taken to different web address.
Importance and Benefits of 301 Redirect
The 301 redirect is very helpful when you plan to migrate your website or web pages to different URL. This help to retain your link juice and visitors. Here we are sharing importance and benefits of redirection.
Importance of 301 Redirect
- Resolving Broken Links– The most important reason to use 301 redirect is to resolve broken links. These broken links occur when web pages are moved or deleted by various reasons. The 301 redirect send you website visitors to the relevant and functional page of your website instead of showing them an error message. This helps to preserve visitor’s trust, engagement towards your website.
- Preserving SEO Value– When a webpage or website is redirected to different URL, its SEO value, backlinks, authority, and ranking factors, all are redirected to the new URL.This transfer of SEO Values helps to maintain search engine rankings and prevents any loss of organic traffic that could result from migration of URLs.
- Enhancing User Experience– 301 redirects offers smooth and seamless user experience by sending visitors to the most relevant page despite of any URL change. This positive user experience builds trust and encourages repeat visits by the visitors.
Benefits of 301 Redirects
- SEO Performance– By preserving SEO value and rankings factors despite of website restructuring or URL changes, 301 redirects allows you to maintains your website’s search engine visibility, and organic web traffic.
- Link Juice Preservation-The 301 redirects pass link juice and backlinks power from you old pages/website to new web pages or website. This will prevents any link juice dilution, backlinks loss, or weakening of SEO.
- Error Reduction– By using 301 redirects, you can reduce and prevents the occurrence of 404 errors. The 404 error can damage user experience and effect search engine crawl ability in negative way.
- Site Restructuring– The 301 redirect effectively guides visitors and search engine to the other relevant URL when you are restructuring your website or web pages.
How to Use 301 Redirect in SEO
301 redirect is very effective way to safeguard your website’s SEO factors, link juice, backlink power, organic web traffic etc in an event for website restructuring, fixing broken link etc. 301 redirect is used in below mentioned events for better SEO factors.
- Permanently migrating old URL to new URL
Due to various reasons, sometimes it is needed to change URL of webpage. 301 redirect is needed when you plan to migrate web page from old URL to new URL.
- Changing Domain of your Website
Sometime domain changing is required to run a website. In this event of domain changing, 301 redirect is required to send visitors from old domain to new domain. This redirection helps you to get old web traffic and backlinks to new domain.
- Deleting Webpage
301 redirection is needed during an event of page deletion. This will help to send user to different and relevant webpage, providing them good user experience.
- Restructuring of Website
When you plan to completely restructure content and user interface of your website for better SEO and user experience, then 301 redirect is needed to retain trust and onsite experience of your visitors.
How to Create 301 Redirect for SEO
There are many ways to create 301 redirect for preserving SEO factors and web traffic of website. You can create redirect by various redirection plugins, you can also create 301 redirect manually. Here we are sharing different ways to create redirect for SEO.
How to Apply 301 Redirects Manually by Using .htaccess
If you are interested in manual redirect or your are a non-WordPress website owner, you can use the .htaccess file to create 301 redirects
- Firstly access server of your website by using FTP client.
- Now locate the .htaccess file in the root directory.
- After locating file, add the below mentioned code to create a 301 page redirect
- RRedirectPermanent http://www.domain.com/old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html
- add the below mentioned code to create a 301 Domain redirect
- RedirectPermanent / http://www.new-domain.com/
- Now Save the .htaccess file and upload it back to the server.
- 301 redirect is created manually
Creating 301 Redirects by Using All In One SEO (AIOSEO) Plugin
AIOSEO is a popular WordPress plugin that simplifies SEO management. You can also create 301 redirect by AIOSEO plugin. Follow these steps to create 301 redirection by AIOSEO
- Firstly install and activate the AIOSEO plugin.
- Now go the wordpress dashboard of AIOSEO
- In the WordPress dashboard, go to AIOSEO » Redirects & 404s.
- Click on the “Add New Redirect” button.
- Enter the old URL in the Source URL field and the new URL in the Destination URL field.
- Choose “301 Moved permanently” from the “Redirect Type” dropdown.
- Now click on continue and save the changes.
How to Create 301 Redirect by Using Server Configuration (Nginx)
- Firstly access Nginx configuration file of your website
- Now connect it to your server using SSH.
- Locate the Nginx configuration file, typically named as nginx.conf or default.conf.
- We advise you to create a backup of the configuration file before making any changes.
- Open the Nginx configuration file using a text editor.
- Edit the Nginx configuration file
- Now Add the 301 redirect code
- To redirect from “old-domain” to “new-domain,” add the following code inside the server block
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name devisers.in www.devisers.in;
return 301 $scheme://www.devisers.com$request_uri;
}
- Now Save the changes and reload Nginx
Conclusion
301 redirect is a powerful and effective way to manage SEO factors and organic web traffic in case of domain or webpage migration. In this article we provided you details like importance, benefits, and how to implement them using various methods and plugins. By using this you can easily manage URL change, resolving broken links, and maintain your site’s ranking and organic traffic. We advise you to take necessory backup of your website’s or web page’s data before creating redirect to avoid any data lose in unwanted scenerio.