Redirection

What Is Redirection?

Redirection is directing users or search engines to a different URL than the one they requested. The most commonly used redirections are: 301 (Permanent Redirect), 302 (Found), 307 (Temporary Redirect), and Meta Refresh.

Why Are Redirections Important in SEO?

Nowadays, redirects are of great importance for webmasters, web developers, and SEO. This practice is essential because it helps both users and search engines find web pages’ content even if you make any changes to their URLs, which would avoid losing ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Redirects are useful in the following cases:

• A web page needs to be removed or moved.
• When updating content.
• To remove the www from a domain.
• To redirect all the pages of a website from one domain to a new domain.
• It is required to merge two websites into one.
• When updating the CMS (Content Management System) platform of a given website.
• Activate permalinks in WordPress
• When you want to guide the visitor to a new site.

What Are The Types Of Redirections And How Do They Work?

301 Permanent Redirect

When you use a 301 redirect, it is to pass a URL permanently with the same conditions (ranking power) to another URL.

It is used to show visitors and search engines the following changes: modify the URL of a web page permanently, change from HTTP to HTTPS, migrate to a new domain permanently, merge two or more web pages or sites, fix duplicate content problems (except www/www.), modify the URL structure, among others.

302 Found

The 302 (Found) redirect is used to indicate to visitors and search engines that a URL has been found but is in a different location.

It is usually used as temporary, and it is advisable not to use it for a long time because it can happen that it considers it a 301 and transfers the value that had that link in the case of Google.

It is very useful in the following cases: redirecting users due to a change of language, location, testing the design or operability of a website, when you want to receive comments on a new page without affecting the previous one, to carry out a promotion by redirecting visitors to a sales page, among others.

307 Temporary Redirect

A 307 redirect indicates precisely that the requested URL has been moved to a temporary location and will return in a certain time, for example, when maintenance is performed.

When this type of redirection is used, it is temporary. It, therefore, must be done using the original URL so that webmasters can continue to use it in the future.

It should be noted that when applying the 307 redirect, search engines do not pass the ranking of the original page to the new temporary page, i.e., it does not affect the ranking of the original URL.

Meta Refresh

Meta Refresh is a form of redirection that is used at the web page level but not on the server.

In most cases, they are used to indicate to browsers or visitors when a website should be updated or refreshed. It is activated when the website loads and can be configured to do so after a certain period of time.

It is important to note that the use of META tags can convey some link equity, which is why it is not recommended as an SEO practice.

How To Use 301 Redirects To Increase The Organic Traffic Of A Website?

To increase the organic traffic on a website by using 301 redirects, there are two ways:

The Cocktail Technique

Ahrefs used this phrase to define the practice of mixing two (02) or more related URLs that have good performance and good backlinks, but the organic traffic passing through them is not so high.

By performing this “Cocktail” and redirecting these URLs to each other, it is possible to merge the authority of these URLs as well as to merge the contents for a better and optimized one that can generate more organic traffic.

The Merger Method

This redirection method consists of buying an old website and using the 301 status code to merge all of its pages and point them to your website.

An effective way to do this is by following these tips:

• Change location and redirect content that is relevant, quality, and has organic traffic.
• Suppose you have duplicate pages with little or no organic traffic. In that case, they can be removed and redirected to a different page. An example would be if there are two pages about “About.”
• If there is no relevant site to redirect to, you can simply link to the merged website’s homepage.