For any reason when you change the URL of your site, visitors are redirected to another location. This process is redirection. Talking particularly about 301 redirect-there is a permanent shift from the previous URL. No matter how many times a user clicks on the old URL, it will be redirected to the new URL.
What is 301 Redirect?
301 redirect tells the browser that the web page has moved to a new location for eternity and has no intention of moving back again. So, the browser will send all the users to a new location. Let’s say there is a site named blog.abc.com, it is redirected to abc.com/blog. If users try to click on the former link, they will fall on a later link because your browser is aware of 301 redirects. It is essential to tell the browser that you have redirected your page through 301 so that the authority of the old page could be transferred to the new one.
Under what circumstances you need 301 redirect-
- You got a new website
- merging two website
- change in the URL name
- Merging contents
- New domain
Why 301 Redirect is Important?
For any reason, if you want to change your URL, setting up 301 redirects is important. Here are the reasons that big marketers also agree-
- User can reach your site faster
Users can reach your site using various routes let’s say http:// abc.com/home, http://home.abc.com or http://abc.com. Prefer one URL and redirect all traffic to this URL. Users will reach your site faster; it will also improve your ranking.
- Renaming a Website
Your original website may contain inbound links when you rename a website, 301 becomes important to maintain those inbound links. Due to its permanent nature, it transfers all inbound links to the new one. This is important to avoid any dip in traffic. If you go for 302 redirects, it may affect your ranking on the search engine. That’s why 301 is also beneficial from an SEO point of view.
- Remedy for Broken Link
In case you posted a broken link unknowingly to your web page then you can redirect it using 301 redirects. Hence you can avoid interruption which might have caused due to broken links.
How to Implement 301 Redirects?
- Open a fresh document
First, open a new document; write these lines of codes-
Redirect 301 / http://www.yourwebsite.com/
This will exchange your website with the actual domain.
- Save and upload this file
Name this file- .htaccess and upload this to your website. The process is complete unless you are not redirecting a URL to non-url, otherwise, there are different sets of codes.
- www code
You can also exchange your site with an actual domain by using following lines of code, if you don’t want to save the file as .htaccess
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yourwebsite.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://yourwebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
- Save this file too
Save this file as you did previously, upload it to your webpage and complete the process.
Include this in your list when doing changes to the website. This will maintain customer engagement with your site. Any changes will not take a toll on your SEO.