A redirect is the act of forwarding one URL to another. This could point to any URL, whether that be on the same site or an external website.
A redirect automatically sends visitors and search engines to a different URL from the one they were expecting to land on.
There are many reasons to add a redirect to your website. For example, if your site features a page advertising an event that has now passed, you may wish to redirect users to the main events page, where they can browse alternatives. This provides a positive user experience.
Alternatively, a redirect could be used to navigate users from an old version of a website to a newer version. This can help retain the levels of traffic when moving to a new and improved website.
Types of redirects
There are several different types of redirects, however, the most common types are the 301 and 302 redirects.
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect, used to tell the browser and search engine that the original page has been permanently moved to a new location. This type of redirect is most used when content is moved to a different location on a website.
Unlike a 301 redirect, a 302 redirect is used when the original URL is temporarily unavailable but will be back in the future. This is typically used during site maintenance, when you want to temporarily direct traffic to a different URL.
How do redirects impact SEO?
If done incorrectly, redirects may have a significant impact on the value of a site’s search engine optimisation (SEO). This can include a decrease in visibility and ranking on the search engine results page, a reduction in the site’s page loading speed or a loss in link equity – which is the value passed from one link to another.
To maintain your site’s SEO performance, it is important to adhere to SEO best practices when putting redirects in place.
Here are some key best practices for redirects:
Always use 301 redirects for permanent changes
This can include moving the location of a page or making changes to its URL. 301 redirects help search engine crawl bots understand the page has moved permanently and tells them that they should carry any link equity and ranking power of the original URL to the new URL.
Use 302 redirects when making temporary changes
302 redirects tell search engine bots that the page has moved to a different URL temporarily, but it will be back, and as such, should not lose any of its rankings on the search engine results page. This means that you’re free to do site maintenance or A/B testing without negative implications on the SEO of the site.
When implementing a redirect, be sure to update any internal links that point to the old URL to new URL. This aids SEO efficiency, as search engine crawl bots can land directly on the new URL when crawling your website instead of passing through a redirect. This mean that resources can be spent discovering and indexing more pages.
Updating internal links in favour of the new URL can improve user experience, as there is no delay caused by the old URL redirecting the user to the new URL.
Avoid chains or loops of redirects
Redirect chains occur when one URL is redirect to another URL, which is then redirected to another URL, and so on. This can cause a delay in page loading speed, as the browser is redirecting to a number of URLS before arriving at its target location.
A redirect loop, on the other hand, occurs when one URL redirects to another before eventually redirecting back to the first URL. This should be avoided, as it prevents users, and search engine crawl bots, from reaching the intended page.
This provides a poor user experience and may also result in the page being dropped from Google’s index as they’re unable to access to content. This can have a significant impact on a site’s SEO performance, as the affected pages won’t show on the results page, and as such, won’t bring traffic to the site.
By implementing redirects with these SEO best practices in mind, you can maintain, and even improve, your site’s SEO performance while providing users with a positive customer experience.
Looking for some guidance on how to implement redirects into your site? Contact the team of experts at Engage Web today.
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