If you are moving, you know how important the mail forwarding process is. You need to ensure that you do not lose any valuable information. The same goes for your website. If you are moving your website from one URL to another, it is crucial to take the necessary steps to ensure you do not lose your customers. This technique is called 301 redirects in technical terms.
A 301 redirect lets you maintain your website’s domain authority, and it’s search rankings even when you change URL for your website. It sends visitors to the new URL address than initially requested by them. Permanent redirect sends search engines to a different URL. It also links various URLs under one roof so that search engines, with the help of inbound links, rank all the addresses based on the domain authority.
Using a 301 redirect can be a smart decision in some cases when planning out your website. Consider this article to identify what is a 301 redirect and how you should be using it.
Implement 301 redirects on an old webpage to redirect any traffic which reaches the page to a new specific URL. This tip is straightforward to execute and can save you a great deal of hardship later.
Read also: How Website Accessibility Impact your SEO?
Reasons to Set up 301 Redirect
There are majorly three reasons for marketers to set up a 301 redirect.
- To rename or rebrand a website: When a business is rebranding its website or company name, to maintain the power of inbound links, it takes help of 301 redirects. 301 redirect helps in transferring inbound links to the new domain.
- To direct search engines and visitor traffic to the new website from other URLs helped by the same business: Sometimes a single brand purchases several domains under the same subject matter or the name of the company. This strategy helps to generate more traffic. 301 redirect helps the brand’s original domain to maintain search authority.
- To maximize domain authority by associating common web conventions such as HTTP//, www., etc.
Difference Between other Redirects and 301 Redirect
Execute other redirects such as a 302-temporary redirect when you move the content of a website to the new site temporarily. You may also use temporary redirects if the website is under maintenance to redirect the visitors of the original site for content consumption. However, 301 permanent redirects are perpetually preferred for search engine optimization since it shifts the inbound links from the original domain to the new one, thereby not letting any hindrance to the search traffic and help the website maintain its search ranking.
Mistakes to Avoid for 301 Redirect
Since 301 redirect helps in redirecting all the inbound links from the original domain to the new one, make sure to link all the different iterations of the brand’s domain so that the search engine rankings are maintained.
Never set up a new domain without setting up a 301 redirect. Not setting up a 301-redirect prior would let Google recrawl it as a new domain. Followed by that the inbound links from the original domain would not be captured by the new domain. This will hinder your site traffic.
- If you are not moving temporarily for restoring or updating your website’s content, it is better to set up a 301 redirect than a temporary 302 redirect.
- It is essential to set up 301 redirects from the older internal links on your website. If you do not, your visitors might be in for a bad experience in case they come looking for reading older content.
- It is rather easy to set up a permanent 301 redirect. Do this and see all your traffic coming to your new domain without any hindrance.
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