Do you know what is URL Redirect? URL Redirect is a technical term which means redirecting one URL to another one. Every post, page or a link has a certain Uniform Resource Locator(URL) but when it gets deleted, moved or modified, it needs to be redirected to a new, modified or targeted URL. This is URL Redirect or URL forwarding. Redirecting is a must-have in some particular occasions. You can’t avoid it if you want to result in better user experience. That’s why redirect is a common SEO practice that use many bloggers, webmasters and ecommerce site owners.
When you Redirect a URL to your targeted web resource, domain or a site, the server uses a certain HTTP Code defined in the HTTP Protocol. The server uses the code automatically to redirect the visitors to the targeted URL to which redirects are made. The common redirect codes which the servers use are 301, 302 etc. There are other redirect codes(300-399) too. They all do not have equal importance and applicability to the users. However, they all are used for URL Redirecting.
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Broader Explanation of URL Redirect
Want to know what is URL Redirecting in details? There are millions of website worldwide. Some website owners run multiple websites for business purposes. Besides, contents are changed owing to change in practical environment. That’s why comes in the necessity of redirecting one URL to another URL.
Visitors browse over the Internet to find out certain queries. The relevant resources having more authority and backlinks appear first in the search result pages but the matter of fact is that some web resources, sites or domains when get visitors redirect them to the other targeted resources to which redirects are set before. The resources do not make redirects rather the servers do that as they are configured from before.
Look at the above diagram to understand how to redirect ULR at server side. Visitors type certain keywords or a particular web address of a domain in the searching box in the browser or search engine and hit the search function or key to let the search engine find out and show what you have wanted.
Now, the search engine will show you the relevant resources or pages, based on what you have requested via the browsers. Clicking on the resources lets you take to the URLs. You will encounter no redirects provided that the URLs are not set to redirecting. But if the URLs are set to redirects(URL forwarding), you will be taken to the redirected resources when you click on the links.
The above diagram shows you that visitors type certain keywords from search engine or browser’s tab. Once the search is done, the search engine displays the relevant source page which takes the visitors to the redirected page. Page “AA” is the source page which search engine displays to the visitors based on the query and this page takes visitors to page “BB” to which the server makes redirect.
Here, both the source page and the target page are within the same server. That is to say, redirect occurs within the same domain. Sometimes, redirects made from one website to another one. No matter to worry—Be it intradomain or interdomain.
Types of URL Redirect
If you want to redirect URL, you should know its types. Normally, URL Redirecting may be either permanent or temporary. Which one is best for you depends on what resource you have made and where you want to redirect to.You can use either of the twos but redirecting to with the former lets you gain SEO benefits including link equity which is long-lasting in nature while the latter is temporary in nature. So, URL redirection is one of the SEO best practice which you may have to apply if needed.
Permanent Redirect
Permanent Redirect: Permanent redirect is the most effective and popular way of redirecting a web page to another URL. Doing permanent redirect lets search engines understand that the page has moved to a new with its content. It allows the source page to pass link juice to the target page,however, search engines take time to recognize the new page to which redirection is made.
301 Moved Permanently
This is the most SEO-friendly, popular and effective redirect used to point one URL to the another URL. 301 is an HTTP Redirection code which the server uses to leave the old, outdated or deleted web page and instead goes to the new web page to which redirection is made. When you implement 301 on your site against a URL, using a WordPress redirect plugin, then the server reads this code and understands that the source URL has deleted or modified and that’s why points visitors from that URL to the new one to which redirection is made. To explain in another term, 301 redirect allows server to take web traffic from the old page to the new page.
When to Use 301 Redirect?
You can use 301 redirect when:
- You merge two websites and want to redirect traffic to your preferred web address.
- You have web pages with good backlink profile and receiving sufficient organic traffic but owing to certain errors the URLs have been changed or the pages deleted. Now, you can redirect web traffic to the relevant or updated pages to so as to not lose traffic and page authority.
- Your website has multiple 404 pages resulting in bad user experience. Now, instead of negative 404 impact on your site, you can implement 301 redirect to the relevant pages.
Does 301 Redirect Affect SEO?
As you are going to know about 301 redirects, you should know whether it affects SEO or not. Some readers also ask,”Are 301 Redirects good for SEO?” To understand whether 301 Redirects are good or bad for SEO, you should dive a little bit into how server redirects URLs. Also, you have to know can Google crawl a 301 redirect page. As our main topic of discussion is 301 redirect impact on SEO, we do not need to know much on how servers perform redirection.
However, I have pointed out earlier that pages having 301 redirection let servers understand that the old pages have been modified or deleted. Hence, when visitors land on the old pages or browsers send HTTP request thereto, the servers point them to the new updated pages where redirection has been made. So, you can obviously understand that if you implement proper URL Redirection, the servers can take the visitors to the redirected pages.
But we have to know its impact on crawling and indexing. You can see and analyze various data on your site from Google Search Console and Google Analytics including URLs with 301 redirects.
If your site has XML sitemap submitted to Google Webmaster Tools, you can login to your search console and mark the redirect errors, if found. By clicking on the page with redirect and redirect error, you can see the various errors linked with URL Redirect.
Suppose your site has some pages already submitted, crawled and indexed by Google, sending sufficient web traffic to your site but, now, they have been redirected to new URLs. Now, Google does not guarantee that all the redirected pages will be recrawled and reindexed. However, case study and search console data prove that those redirected pages will be crawled and indexed, though it may take longer time. Many a times, owing to improper redirection or fetching error in Google bot, they do not crawl and index the redirected pages as much faster as you want. If you want to faster indexing of the redirected pages by Google, use proper URL Redirect with 301.
Once the pages are crawled and indexed with success, you will get both the link equity and visitors on the redirected pages from the old pages.
“There is, no doubt, 301 redirect affect SEO in crawling and indexing. Improper URL Redirect leads to errors in crawling as the search engine bots can’t fetch the pages. On the other hand, proper redirections with 301 pass link equity as well as traffic from the source pages to the new pages though it may take longer time on certain occasions.”
Temporary Redirect
Temporary Redirect: Temporary redirect is another type of redirection made for changes which are temporary in nature. It is not so good as permanent redirect is. However, you can apply temporary redirect on certain occasions especially when you want to redirect web traffic to another website or location.
What Is 302 Redirect?
302 Redirect is a temporary redirect which you can implement to redirect visitors from the source URL to the destination URL. When you use 302 HTTP Response code, the search engines do not immediately pass PageRank to the destination URL. As opposed to 301, 302 tells search engines that the page should no be indexed.
When to Use 302 Redirect?
As we are discussing on URL Redirect, you should know when to use 302 redirect. Already you have learnt that redirection with 302 is temporary in nature. So, take care of it.
You can use 302 redirect when:
- Your site is under maintenance and that’s why you want to redirect traffic to another site.
- You want to redirect traffic to a relevant page for a while but want to keep the source page indexed in Google.
- You have content in one URL but you want to promote links to another URL.
Now, you have learnt that URL Redirect allows you to reroute web traffic from one location to another location. All the redirections do not have equal value when they come to search results. Based on what you want to do and how to do, you can implement URL redirection. 301 Redirection is recommended if you want to pass SEO juice as well as traffic from the source URL to the destination URL. On the other hand, 302 will be your choice if you would like to redirect traffic from the source page to another page for a while but want to keep the source page indexed so that it is available to visitors later on.
