Website Redirection – How To Do It?

Website redirection allows you to automatically direct visitors to your site to another location on the web. If you’re starting an online business and your site is in its infancy, you’re probably not redirecting the site. Over time, however, the site grows, is more complex, products or various posts are added. Sometimes it is necessary to delete or change certain pages, and then page redirection plays an important role. What is redirection, why redirect, and how to redirect links properly may be helpful to you in the future, especially from an SEO and user perspective.

Table of Contents

What is website redirection?

Website redirection means redirecting one website URL to another. That is, when someone enters or clicks on this original URL in a browser, they will automatically see the content of the page to which the actual website is redirected. The following types of redirects are most commonly used:

301 – permanent redirection

302 – temporary redirection

Between 301 and 302 redirects is the main difference in transmitting every site’s so-called link juice. This is the value that each website sends through links. The better the link source, the better the link juice value. The old webpage you want to redirect is already reaching some deal. At 301 redirect, the link juice is moved to the redirected page, and this value is not lost. However, with 302 temporary redirects, the link juice remains on the old page.

Why do I need to redirect my site?

The most crucial reason such redirects are set up is to keep your site from losing traffic. This means that, for example, if you have a product in your e-shop that you no longer sell, deleting the page with that product would lose the valuable traffic that the product received. The link would show the user a 404 page, which is a wrong signal for search engines and hurts users who are more likely to leave the site. However, traffic will not be lost if you redirect this website, such as to a category page where this product belonged.

Redirection is also helpful if you’re moving from an old site to a new one if the site is changing its structure. You can use redirection even if you change the domain, hosting, and the system on which the website runs. Here it would be best if you used a permanent 301-page redirect. Search engines index this redirect so your site won’t lose traffic or credibility.

When moving a page from one URL to another, the search engine will take some time to discover page 301, recognize it, and write a new page with the rankings and credibility of its predecessor.

You can also use persistent 301-page redirection when setting up duplicate pages. The most common example is the use of a domain with www and at the same time without www. This is how the analytics tools count your traffic on two different sites with the same content. For this reason, it’s a good idea to set up a redirect so that your customers only see a page with or without www.

Redirect 302 is used to redirect a URL temporarily, but you intend to return to the original address later.

This is most often the case if you want to redesign your site but need to complete it so that users are directed to a different domain. For example, if you’re going to inform your customers that your site is currently under construction. Temporary 302 redirects are not used very often.

How do you redirect your website?

You can redirect a website in different ways. It differs mainly in the system on which your website runs. Here are some redirects:

Redirect to .htaccess file

The first method is done using the .htaccess web server configuration file, into which you paste the redirect code.

RewriteEngine On

Redirect 301 /stara_url/ http://www.example.com/exam_url/

Redirect via HTML

The easiest way to redirect is to paste the following meta tag into the page’s HTML code. The content attribute is the delay until the browser turns to the new page, setting it to 0 seconds.

Redirect in WordPress

If you have a website built on WordPress, redirection is possible using one of the many redirection plugins. This allows you to set up redirection without writing a single line of code. The easiest way to add and manage redirects in WordPress is to use the Redirection plugin. Install and activate the plugin. Once activated, go to Tools -> Redirects and set up redirects.

We believe that by following the steps above, you will be able to redirect your site, whether due to sold-out or a change of domain.

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