When you need to redirect a website or individual webpage to a different
location, there are a number of different tactics you can employ.
What is a redirect?
A redirect will simply send a user from the URL they originally
requested to a different webpage. This works for both visitors and search
engines.
Why would you use a redirect?
According
to Hubspot, there are three main reasons why you would use a redirect.
1) To associate common web conventions with
one URL to maximize domain authority
So if there are multiple versions of your domain name (for
instance http://www.example.com and plain old example.com) there’s a chance
you’ll encounter duplicate content issues. By setting up a permanent redirect
(a 301 redirect) from one version of your site to your preferred version,
search engines will know the correct domain to index.
2) To rebrand or rename a website with a
different URL
You’ll want to set up a permanent redirect if your website name
changes.
3) To direct traffic to a website from
other URLs owned by the same organization
Occasionally brands may purchase website URLs that are
variations on their existing brands in order to secure them. These URLs can be
redirected to the proper brand domain.
There are countless other reasons why you’d set up a redirect,
and it can just be for an individual webpage rather than a whole domain.
What is a 301 redirect?
As mentioned earlier, a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. It
basically tells users and search engines, “That information now resides
somewhere else.”
Benefits of 301 redirect
A 301 response is ideal for correcting visitors who come to the
wrong version of your domain, like non-www redirecting to www. This code should
also be used when you update and move content within your site.
In terms of SEO, a link from a 301 redirected page shouldn’t
lose any ranking power compared to a link from a non-301 redirected page.
There
was a previously held assumption that there would be a loss of PageRank (around
15%) but this is no longer the case. As reported by Moz in August 2016:
§ In
February, Google’s John Mueller announced that no PageRank is lost for 301 or 302
redirects from HTTP to HTTPS.
§ Google’s
Gary Illyes stated that Google doesn’t care which redirection method you use,
be it 301, 302, or 307. Google will figure it out and they all pass PageRank.
§ Gary
Illyes also announced on that any 300 redirects no longer lose PageRank at all.
Problems with 301 redirect
Redirects can cause problems when the new location isn’t
relevant to the old location This can be seen as a misuse of the function and
is therefore a common spam indicator, and may result in a manual penalty.
Especially if you buy multiple irrelevant websites and point
them all at your site.
Moz also states the following to keep in mind:
§ PageRank only
forms a small part of the ranking factors used by Google
§ Try and
keep every element on the page the same, except of course for the URL
§ Migrating
a site to HTTPS is less likely to lose PageRank then before, but there are
many others issues that can affect crawling and indexing, so do be
careful.
Redirect a single page
