However, if not implemented correctly, they can also cause harm to your website’s ranking. The following article will explain what 301 redirects for SEO are and how to use them correctly for SEO.
What Is a 301 Redirect?
A 301 redirect is a type of HTTP response code that shows that a page has been permanently moved to a new location.
1 What Is a 301 Redirect?2 Why Use 301 Redirects?3 How to Create a 301 Redirect?4 Tips for Implementing 301 Redirects for SEO5 Why are 301 Redirects Harmful to SEO?6 Three Best Practices for 301 Redirects
When users visit the old page, they will be automatically redirected to the new page. It is done by sending a header called “Location” in the response with the URL of the new page.
Why Use 301 Redirects?
301 redirects are used to avoid search engine penalties and broken links. If a lot of traffic is being sent to an old webpage, but the webpage has been deleted or moved to a new location, search engines will see that the page doesn’t exist anymore, and it can impact your rankings. A 301 redirect helps employers send all traffic from the old URL directly to the new one without any issues. However, sending visitors from an older page directly to a new page instead of using a 301 redirect may affect your website’s ranking since search engines don’t know that these pages are still relevant. For instance, when migrating domains in WordPress, you should always use 301 redirects instead of the default setting, which is a 302 (temporary) redirect.
How to Create a 301 Redirect?
According to reports, out of the billions of searches that happen on a given day, 15 percent of daily searches are new to Google. There are two ways to create a 301 redirect – using a code or a plugin. To create a 301 redirect for SEO using code, you need to use the “Location” header in an HTTP response with the URL of the new page. To make a 301 redirect using a plugin, you can use the Redirection plugin for WordPress. The plugin allows you to manage all your 301 redirects easily and includes a handy tool that will help you find any broken links on your website.
Tips for Implementing 301 Redirects for SEO
Here are some tips for implementing 301 redirects for SEO.
Always use 301 redirects when migrating domains instead of using a 302 (temporary) redirect.If you are moving pages within your website, use the correct URL structure to be crawled and indexed by search engines. You should ensure that the new page is accessible to search engine crawlers and that the link juice is passed on correctly. Ensure that the code is implemented correctly so that there are no errors. Test your redirects before going live to make sure everything works as planned.
Why are 301 Redirects Harmful to SEO?
If implemented incorrectly, 301 redirects can harm your website’s ranking. The most common issues with 301 redirects are.
The new page is not accessible by search engines – You should make sure that it follows all SEO guidelines. No no-index tags are added to the old page before implementing a 301 redirect. If this happens, search engines will keep indexing this page, which causes duplicates in SERPs and includes the same page twice on search results. It also affects rankings since you send duplicate links of the same webpage to users. 404 errors are displayed when using a 302 (temporary) redirect instead of a 301 –You should always use a permanent redirection to move pages.
The wrong page is redirected –You must make sure you test your redirects before going live to ensure they are working correctly.
301 redirects can be a valuable part of SEO and, when implemented correctly, can help to improve your website’s ranking. However, it is essential to note that there are certain things that you need to watch out for when using 301 redirects, such as making sure that the new page is accessible by search engines and that no 404 errors are displayed.
Three Best Practices for 301 Redirects
Here are the three best ways to leverage 301 redirects.
Ensure that the new page is accessible to search engine crawlers and that the link juice is passed on correctly. Test your redirects before going live to make sure everything works as planned. Always use 301 redirects when migrating domains instead of using a 302 (temporary) redirect.
Finally, avoid using JavaScript since crawlers cannot crawl this content and do not use an infinite number of hops in your redirects since there is no benefit to it, which increases load times. It should never be more than five hops anyway.
