Website redirects let you send traffic from one URL to another. Website owners use redirects for several reasons, including to accommodate site changes, to consolidate multiple URLs, to fix broken links, and to offer a smoother user experience. Through redirects, instead of landing on a page that no longer exists or is irrelevant, users are taken to another page, which enhances their experience.
Redirects do enhance the user experience, but they have several other benefits as well. They influence the overall usability of a site and impact its search ranking. Search engines check website redirection to crawl and index a page and determine its position on SERPs. In the article below, we have a detailed guide that will help you understand everything you need to know about website redirection and its best practices.
What Is Website Redirection?
Website redirection is a process of sending visitors and search engines from one URL to another through a simple line of code. It is used when a webpage has been moved, updated, or replaced by another webpage, ensuring users reach the correct content instead of seeing an error page.
Let us understand website redirection with an example. Suppose a page’s URL has changed recently. In this case, without a redirect, the visitors will land on the old webpage, which has irrelevant content. However, applying website redirection seamlessly moves them to the new link, helping owners generate desirable results.
Website redirects, along with keyword optimization, are two of the most essential aspects that determine how users and search engines view a website. Fortunately, there are tools that help analyze redirects and discover best keywords for your site.
Now the question is, what are the SEO benefits of redirects on search engines?
- Preserves Link Equity:
Redirects, when implemented the right way, transfer link equity from the old URL to the new one. This way, you preserve the link equity of the old URL, resulting in SEO benefits.
- Help Search Engines Understand Site Structure:
Redirects guide search engines to the correct page, helping them understand the site structure. The approach helps them crawl the sites better for indexing, which improves their overall ranking.
- Better User Experience:
Redirects help users find the right page, which improves the overall user experience on your site. Redirecting users to a relevant page on the site also prevents dead ends and enables users to further explore your website.
Types of Redirects
Before moving on to the best practices of redirects, it is important to understand the most common types that a site can utilize:
- 301 Redirect:
A 301 redirect permanently moves a page to the new URL. It is one of the best ways of implementing redirects on a website and is equally relevant as canonical redirects.
If you want to transfer full link equity and enable search engines to find the new URL effortlessly, using the 301 redirect is essential.
- 302 Redirect:
A 302 redirect temporarily moves a page to a new URL. These redirects have a limited time and must be used carefully, as they may impact search engine indexing and ranking.
- 307 Redirects:
A 307 redirect is similar to a 302 redirect, meaning that it is temporary in nature. However, the two redirects differ in the way they are executed since they handle HTTP request methods differently.
- Meta Refresh:
Meta refresh occurs at the page level using HTML, rather than through the server. It automatically refreshes a page or redirects users to another URL after a set time delay.
When Should You Use Redirects?
Every website owner must have an SEO maintenance checklist that will help them determine whether they are looking into all the essential elements of their site. Now, one of the most essential elements of a website is its redirects.
Redirects, when used the right way, improve user experience and its overall ranking. Here are a few instances when redirects are beneficial for your site:
- If you are migrating a site from an old to a new domain, redirects become extremely crucial. You must reroute all the older pages to the more recent ones in this situation.
- If you have an e-commerce site and a product is out of stock or discontinued, you must redirect customers to the nearest alternative.
- Redirecting old web pages or content to related or other updated pages is crucial. This improves the overall user experience and helps search engines to index your site efficiently.
- If you are consolidating two web pages into one, you must redirect the URLs to the relevant domain.
Best Practices for Redirect
When you follow the best practices for redirects, you ensure that you face fewer problems in terms of user experience and search engine indexing.
Having a website is not enough; you must also implement the right digital marketing strategies if you want your business to succeed. So, when you are implementing redirects, keep in mind the following things:
- Redirecting to the Most Relevant Page:
When you are redirecting your URL to a new URL, use the most relevant and similar pages. Redirecting to a page that has an entirely different intent means you are misleading your visitors. It impacts the overall user experience, making your SEO efforts go in vain.
- Avoid Redirect Chains:
Redirect chains may look harmless because your users are unable to see them, but search engines take full notice of these elements. After five redirects, Google stops crawling your page, resulting in your redirect efforts becoming useless.
- Use the Right Redirect Type:
Use the right redirect for your site. For instance, the 301 redirect is for permanent URL changes, and the 302 and 307 redirects are for temporary moves. The right redirect will help search engines understand the intent better, resulting in more effortless crawling.
- Avoid Soft 404:
Google treats redirects to an irrelevant page as a soft 404. This means it will ignore the redirect and not pass any link authority. For instance, if the old URL was a product page for bags and the redirected URL is a product page for skincare, Google will mark it as irrelevant. Hence, it is important to avoid soft 404s and only redirect to relevant web pages.
- Avoid Meta Refreshes:
It is important to avoid meta refreshes whenever you can because they are slow and lead to a poor user experience. Moreover, meta refreshes do not provide the same value to your website as 301 redirects do.
Conclusion
Redirects are an important SEO element. It helps your visitors find relevant content on the site and also improves your website’s search ranking when implemented the right way. As a website owner, it is important for the user to understand which redirect to implement at what time. Doing so will improve the user experience and also make it easy for search engines to crawl and index your website.
