Do you want to move some content from one page to another, or do you want to redesign your whole site and not use the old URLs? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you might be worried that doing so might hurt your position in search results.
If you are setting up a new page or an entire website and don’t want to use the same URL, you need to know the right way to do things. When URLs are changed in the wrong way, all of the SEO work that was done on the old URLs is lost. Because the URLs were altered incorrectly, the site got low ranking in-search results, which made organic traffic drop.
The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch for SEO. With a 301 redirect for SEO, you can send all of your organic traffic to your new pages or website for good.
What Does 301 Redirect Mean?
A 301 redirect for SEO tells search engines, like Google, that content from an old webpage has been permanently moved to another webpage. How does a 301-redirect work? It sends people to the new URL when they click on the old URL.
For example, the owner of a website wants to change the name of the website and the URL. If some of the site’s former visitors look for it on Google and see the old URL, clicking on it will take them to a “404 error” page. When this happens, 301 redirects are helpful.
Redirects allow people to get to the new page or site even if they click on the old URL. When someone clicks on a link to a blog or content from an old page, the same thing happens. The screen will also show a message that says “404 error.”
Without redirects, visitors will get a “404 error” message, which doesn’t look suitable for the company whose website it is. If anything, “404 error” messages tell people who visit a website that the owner doesn’t care about the user’s feelings. With redirects, it’s easy to avoid that error, which makes it easier for visitors to use your site.
When Should 301 Redirects Be Used?
If you’re not sure when to use 301 redirect for SEO, here are a few situations technical SEO guide that can be helpful:
- When changing URLs, no matter what the reason
- When making a copy of website content,
- When putting together several web pages with the same information,
- When moving information from one domain to another
- When using a phased-launched method to rebuild a website,
Does 301 Redirect help SEO?
Many professional SEO services experts look into how PageRank and 301 redirects work together. If you don’t know what PageRank is, it’s the formula Google uses to figure out a page’s value and authority based on how many and how good its links are.
Google considers PageRank isn’t the only thing, but most experts agree that a higher PageRank means a higher ranking in search results. And for this you need professional seo service.
Back then, when you used redirects, you would lose a lot of PageRank. Google is the only one who knows how much of the whole percentage is lost. The good news is that a website won’t lose its PageRank if it uses redirects anymore, which won’t happen until 2016.
That update is beneficial, especially for getting organic traffic to a redesigned page or website, and it shows that using 301 redirects is a great SEO practice. Here are some more benefits of redirects for SEO:
Getting more people to buy:
Visitors may never return to the same website again if they keep getting “404 error” notices. With redirects, on the other hand, they are quickly sent to a new website they can use. Through redirects, a good user experience keeps visitors interested in a website, which leads to higher conversion rates.
Holding on to Link Equity:
Link equity is a ranking factor for search engines because some links pass authority and value from one page to another. Some types of redirects, like 302, can’t give link equity to the new page. However, 301 redirect for SEO has been shown to pass about 90% of the value and authority of the old page to the new page.
Getting rid of the old URLs from the indexes of search engines:
When search engine spiders visit your site and see redirects, it tells them that they need to get rid of old URLs from their databases. After that, they use new URLs instead of the old ones. In the meantime, people who don’t know about the new URLs but still try to access certain websites using their old URLs will be sent to the new ones.
How Does SEO Affect 301 Redirects?
When you make significant changes to your website, there is always a good chance it will hurt your SEO. You would have every reason to worry about this since it takes months to make real progress on your page ranking.
When 301 redirects are used correctly, they don’t hurt your SEO, so that you can breathe a sigh of relief.
Google knows that 3XX requests are a normal part of how people browse the web today. It also wants website owners to improve the user experience by ensuring users get to where they want to go. A 301 redirect sends users to the new location and moves the page’s authority to the unique URL.
What Effect Do Redirects Have on Your Backlinks?
When thinking about 301 redirect for SEO, you’ll also want to watch your backlinks profile, essential for SEO. Backlinks are links on other websites that send their visitors to yours. You can improve your SEO and domain authority by having a healthy backlinks profile when you link to other trusted domains.
When a backlink sends people to a page on your website that can’t be found, you lose all the benefits of that backlink. That traffic can’t get to your content, and the site that links to your domain will get a hit for sending people to a place that doesn’t exist.
Even though not redirecting a backlinked page doesn’t hurt you, it also doesn’t let you reap the benefits of your hard work. By setting up a 301 redirect, you’ll keep getting any SEO benefits from being linked to that domain. If you can’t set up a redirect, you should tell the webmaster of the external site the new URL.
Your redirects have to work right to give your visitors a good experience. If you triple-check your scripts and pay attention to common signs of problems, everything should go smoothly. Feel free to use 301 redirect for SEO as much as you want to improve how your website works.
Author
Pentra SEO Agency
