eCommerce Checklist: 301 Redirects

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301 Redirects: Everything You Need To Know About It for Your SEO Campaign

The How To and Types of Redirects

Are 301 redirects bad for SEO? As part of an SEO campaign, every website owner needs to also have a great understanding of the term '301 redirects'. Let's face it, at first, they are pretty easy to understand. However, when it comes to their application to SEO, that's where one might encounter a series of challenges. Well, in case you're interested in knowing how to apply 301 redirects for your SEO, we're happy to tell you that you're in the right place. That's because we'll be sharing with you, in this post, everything you need to know about it.

URL redirection, also called URL forwarding is a technique that helps to assign more than one URL address to a web page. The HTTP redirect is a special kind of response that the HTTP browser uses in this kind of operation. Furthermore, there are several reasons why one needs to redirect a page. Here are some of them below:

Temporary Redirects

Most people opt for this process when they're facing issues with their websites. It could be that they're experiencing a broken URL or need to perform quick maintenance on their sites.

Permanent Redirects

There are several reasons why website owners perform a permanent URL redirect on their sites. It could be that they need to change their domain name, delete a page, or move their page to a new location. Whatever the reason, the main goal is to preserve the existing links after they've switched to the new URLs.

Types of Redirects

There are several types of URL redirects that you can perform for your website. Here are some of them below:

301 redirects for SEO purpose

The 301 redirect is a process that's recommended for SEO. It always comes with a text, which reads "Moved permanently".

302 Redirects

Another common type of redirect is the 302 code. However, unlike the 301 redirects, where URL movements are permanent, this one only deals with the temporal migration for HTTP 1.0 only. Furthermore, it always comes with a message, which reads "Found".

303 Redirects

A 303 redirect is another common type of temporary redirection that you can use to redirect your browser after an HTTP POST or a PUT. The purpose of that is to prevent the refreshment of the result page from re-triggering the operation. Furthermore, this process always comes with a message, which reads "See other".

307 Redirects

The 307 redirects are similar to the 302 redirects. However, instead of moving the URL temporarily for HTTP 1.0, it only does it for HTTP 1.1. Speaking of its text, the code always comes with a message, which reads "Temporary Redirect".

308 Redirects

Just like the 301 redirects, the 308 redirect is another type of permanent redirect, which involves reorganizing a website with non-GET links or operations.

What Is 301 Redirect For SEO And When Is It Needed?

What Is 301 Redirect For SEO And When Is It Needed?

Are you interested in moving your website from one URL to another? If yes, then there are lots of factors that you must consider, in order to ensure that your visitors get sent to the right place. One of them is the 301 Redirects for SEO. Speaking of this process, it helps to preserve your already established URLs to your new website. In clear terms, a 301 redirect helps to take the entered URL for a requested resource and redirects the browser to its new site.

In case you don't know, 301 is one of the status codes that a server utilizes to signal your browser. For instance, when you migrate your content from a specific URL to a new one, any of your visitors that visit the old one will get a 404 error message, which reads "page not found". Here's where the 301 redirects for SEO purpose comes into the scene. The code tells the server to signal the browser to forward visits from the old URL to the new location.

For instance, let's say you have products on your old site, represented as http://www.clarity.com/product_A_.html. But you now have the same product on your new website, represented as http://www.clarity.com/product_A1_.html. By using a 301 redirect, you can easily redirect your visitors to the new website when they visit the formal one.

301 Redirect Using .htaccess And To-do

301 Redirect Using .htaccess And To-do

Most often than not, a web server’s behavior comes, configured with a .htaccess file. In case you don't know, the file is located in the root directory of your website. Certainly, there are many ways to perform 301 redirects for SEO. However, a very common and effective technique that you can use is the htaccess redirect. What does this even mean?

Well, an htaccess redirect involves editing your site’s .htaccess file and adding new code, depending on the type of redirection that you want. Furthermore, it's worth noting that not every web server’s behavior is configured with the .htaccess file.

In case you don't have a .htaccess file to perform 301 redirects, you need not worry about it. That's because you can always create one by utilizing your Notepad for Windows operating system or TextEdit for Mac OS. All you need to do is to open the app, depending on the type of device that you use. After that, create a new document and save it by removing the .txt file extension and replacing it with .htaccess.

Furthermore, speaking of how to edit your .htaccess file to perform 301 redirects, here's a rule example to explain it below.

<rule name="Blog203">
<match url="^blog/article/982/dnn-portals-intranets-made-easy$" />
<action type="Redirect" url="/blog/dnn-portals-intranets-made-easy" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>

Clarity's 301 redirect To-do

The above code is an example of a single 301 permanent redirect (for SEO) that you can perform with the .htaccess file. Here, the old URL had position 2 of “/blog” but then added a position 3 (/article) and position 4 (982), before it finally listed the 301 SEO friendly content in position 5.

Furthermore, when we released our new site, we re-did all of the URLs, putting the article names in position 3 - a much stronger position for SEO. We also removed the irrelevant parts of the URL, which were actually hurting our rankings.

That said, here's what our 301 redirect to-do at Clarity Ventures is all about. We'll help you create a spreadsheet listing all of the pages that will be redirected and the corresponding pages, where they'll be redirected to. Visit our enterprise SEO solutions page.