In today’s era of digitalization, having an online appearance becomes mandatory to cope with the competitive market. And having an online appearance can make you face many issues as well. In the realm of website management and SEO, One of the biggest and most faced issues is URL Redirection. Basically, redirections occur when you are doing rebranding, changing domains, or if you want to optimize your site’s structure.

URL Redirect also known as URL Forwarding is a technique that is used to redirect your website’s visitors to a different URL. This forwarding could be any like you can redirect users to a new URL or to another domain, etc.

What are HTTP status codes?

Consider a scenerio where you have to open a bookmark you have saved for a long time. Now you need that and you have opened it but it shows you an error message like 404 PAGE NOT Found. This happened because the site got shifted to some other domain or may be its owner has completely deleted the site from the domain. Here’s a point where you will get to know about HTTP status codes, like Information responses, Success, Redirection, client and server errors. We mostly have to deal with the Redirections.

Redirects usually use the status codes defined within the HTTP protocol. Based on the redirect codes used by site owners, the users and bots get translocated to destinations that may not be the same as they saw them before. URL redirection may be of the following types:

• 301 URL Redirects (permanent)

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes full link equity to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. This usually happens when a web page is deleted permanently or if multiple duplicate pages are merged. In most of cases, 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website. As, it transfers most of the original page ranking power (link equity) to a new URL, that helps you maintain your website’s organic search performance.

• 302 URL Redirects (temporary)

302 redirects are used when the URL of a resource is changed temporarily. These redirects can be applied in cases when a web page is temporarily move to a new URL, to an under maintenance page, or when you want to do A/B testing of a new website design or copy. Google will continue to index the redirected page without passing link juice to the new page.

This comprehensive guide will let you know about the various methods of redirecting a URL to another URL, highlighting the four methods.

The intention of implementing redirections is to make sure that the users and search engine crawlers are pointed to the right pages so that they do not face a 404 error because this will hinder their smooth journey.

Common Mistakes with 301 Redirects

Proper management of 301 redirects is vital for maintaining the website’s performance and search engine rankings during URL changes. However, some common issues can undermine your efforts. Here are some common mistakes you can avoid:

·      Creating Redirect Chains

The creation of redirect chains is one of the most common errors. What happens here is that one redirected URL leads to the other redirected URL, and the process goes on. This not only slows down the page loading speed but also affects the SEO.

·      Failing to Update Internal Links

After implementing 301 redirects, the webpages having internal links are not updated according to the new URLs. This issue forces the search engines to go through unnecessary redirects and leads to a negative impact on your site’s SEO.

• Redirecting to Irrelevant Pages

You have to be sure while implementing redirects to your sites because if you redirect your users to a URL that does not match the content then this would increase the bounce rate of your site. This will hurt the overall effectiveness of the redirect.

How to redirect a URL to another URL?

There are many ways to implement URL redirections. But the first question raised here is whether the redirects need to happen on the same domain, or across different domains.

·      Redirects on the Same Domain

When a redirect occurs on the same domain (i.e. only the path changes, not the domain name), you have two main options to accomplish this. You can use application code (e.g. PHP, Ruby, Java, .NET, etc.) or web server configuration (e.g. Apache, Nginx, IIS, etc.). While it is possible to do this through a meta tag in the HEAD section of your web page, we do not recommend this. Using meta tags does not use the correct HTTP status code.

·      Redirects to Different Domain Names

When it comes to redirecting to a different domain, you can use application code or web server configuration, just like when you redirect to the same domain. However, you can also use URL redirect services. The benefit of using a service is that you don’t have to set up and manage the technical infrastructure, you can get up and running very quickly, and you don’t need an IT team to manage it.

1.     Redirection Via .htaccess

• Open the .htaccess file on your web server.
• Locate the rewrite engine.
• Redirect a single URL.
• Redirect all URLs on this website to another website.
• Save your changes and reupload the file.

2.     Redirection Via cPanel

You can create redirects to your web pages using the cPanel hosting manager. What you have to do is just follow the steps below:

• Log in to your cPanel account.
• Click the Domains menu.
• Click Redirects.
• Select a redirect type from the menu.
• Choose a page to redirect.
• Enter the URL you want to redirect to. In the « Redirects to » field, type the full URL (including https:// or another protocol) into the field.
• Select a www redirection setting.
• Choose whether to set up a wildcard redirect.
• Click Add to add your URL redirect.

3.     Redirection Using WordPress Plugins

• Install the Redirection plugin for WordPress.
• Open the tools menu and select Redirection.
• Click Redirects.
• Enter the page you want to redirect into the « Source URL » field.
• Enter the URL you want to redirect to.
• If you are redirecting to another domain, enter the full URL, e.g., https://www.NEWDOMAIN.com.
• If you’re redirecting one page to another on the same domain, you can use a relative URL like /NEWPAGE/.
• Click the gear to access more options.
• Select a redirect type.
• Click Add Redirect to save your redirect.

4.     Redirection Using PrestaShop Addons

You can add redirections to your PrestaShop websites simply by using several add-ons available on the marketplace.

• You can do this by going to PrestaShop Addons and Installing the PrestaShop Redirection module from the catalog.
• There are two ways you can implement redirects using a module, via .htaccess file and Controller
• Open the dashboard and go to the Manage redirects. You can add multiple redirections from here by adding your old URL and a new one.
• You can manage the 404 reports from the dashboard as well.

Conclusion

URL redirection is a fundamental part of site management and optimization. You have all the knowledge and the tools you need to deal with any redirection situation. All you have to need is, just keep in mind the significance of constant monitoring and testing as you delve into the world of URL redirection. This will ensure the optimal performance of your website and the user experience.

Author Joseph Chain

Joseph Chain is a Professional Digital Marketer having experience of more than 5 years in the field. Currently working in a PrestaShop development company, FME Modules and striving to deliver engaging content across diverse industries.