In this guide, I will walk you through everything you need to know about redirects, clear up confusion around some of the most commonly asked questions, and understand which type you need to use in different scenarios. Quite simply, redirects are a way to forward traffic or search engine bots from one URL to another in instances when the original no longer exists.
If there is no redirect put in place, anyone who lands on a page that has been moved, or deleted, would see an error. This result can cause users to bounce or leave the site and means that converting this user into a customer or client, or even an email subscriber drops massively. When we click a link, we expect to be taken to the relevant page, not served an error because it has been either moved or removed. Use a redirect to forward traffic to the new URL and you will have a happy visitor who, even though the URL is different, still ends up where they wanted to go.
You have taken them straight from page A to page B. When a page returns a status code or another not found error such a , search engines will pretty quickly drop it from the index — this means that it will no longer hold any rankings on the SERPs that it had.
Forgetting to implement redirects really can result in lost search engine rankings, as well as disgruntled users. Other times, you need to redirect an entire domain. But you need to understand that there are different types of redirects that you need to use depending on the situation and the end goal. The type of redirect that you implement very much depends on the reason why you need to do so, and whether the move is temporary or permanent. Knowing the different redirect options means that you can use the right one in each scenario and prevent SEO or user experience issues from occurring.
But please be aware that using the wrong type of redirect could result in a loss of search engine rankings in rare cases, as could not implementing redirects at all.
If you have a complex situation and are unsure of which redirect type is the one that you need to use to prevent issues, or whether you need to put them in place at all, please seek advice from an experienced SEO. And it is this information about the purpose and type of the redirect that makes this type so common, meaning you can give different directions depending on your situation. These are, by far, the most common and most talked about redirects and are one of the straightforward basics of SEO , given their ability to not only forward users but also pass on PageRank.
You can learn more about this in this guide to redirects. A redirect forwards a user from page A to page B but also signals that this move is only temporary and that the original URL will be reinstated. An open redirect for search results: Verifying whether or not your site has been victimized can be a challenge, but here are a few safeguards:.
It is important to note that a redirect was designed to be a temporary redirect while a redirect was intended to be a permanent one. This means that there are differences in how the search engines approach these commands. For a permanent redirect, for example, the search engine will focus on ranking the targeted site rather than the original - as the site owner, you do not want two versions of your content on the web. On the other hand, if you still intend to use the original site, you do not want Google to ignore the original site, thus making the temporary redirect more applicable.
If you fail to adjust your redirect to redirect when the situation is permanent, you run the risk of the search engines not paying enough attention to your targeted site or continuing to index the old page. Although Google, as mentioned above, has indicated that they do try to interpret when a redirect is an error and treat redirects that are temporary the same as a redirect, this can still leave you open to a window where the original site is indexed.
For these reasons, it is generally safer to make sure your permanent redirects are accurately written as redirect. HTTP redirect can be a valuable tool to help you control your traffic and ensure that your visitors receive the user experience you intended. Understanding how to use these commands correctly can help you improve your site and appropriately navigate changes in your domain. WE use cookies on our site to provide you with the best user experience. We will assume that you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy if you continue accessing this website.
Read Privacy Policy. Jump to navigation. Request a demo. Firefox displays:. Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never terminate. In both cases, the user can't do much unless corruption is happening on their side, like a mismatch of cache or cookies. There are several types of redirects, sorted into three categories: Permanent redirections Temporary redirections Special redirections. Others may or may not be changed to GET.
Others changed to GET body lost. Better than when non- GET operations are available on the site. Indicates that the cached response is still fresh and can be used. HTTP redirects aren't the only way to define redirections. HTTP redirects always execute first — they exist when there is not even a transmitted page.
JavaScript redirects execute last, and only if JavaScript is enabled. But there are reasons for alternative names for a resource: Expanding the reach of your site A common case is when a site resides at www. Moving to a new domain For example, your company was renamed, but you want existing links or bookmarks to still find you under the new name. Firefox displays: Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never terminate.
It is important to avoid redirection loops, as they completely break the user experience. GET methods unchanged. The Web page is temporarily unavailable for unforeseen reasons.
You use redirects when you're moving content around and you want the content to retain its value. The scope differs; you could just be moving one page or you could be migrating an entire website to a different domain. Say you have a temporary summer sale campaign for flip flops. In this case you'd use a redirect.
Say some products on your site are not longer available, and they won't return in the future. You delete those product pages, and you redirect these URLs to the most relevant alternative page. Most of the times that's a related product, but if that's not possible you can redirect to the parent category.
Say you're moving your website over to a new domain name, then you need to redirect both visitors and search engines there. Redirection is done on a web server level, and it's similar to redirecting URLs, the scope of the redirect is just very different — it affects the whole website.
Another example where you'd use a website redirect is when merging websites; this involves one or more websites that are merged into one. This is common after acquisitions, or when satellite websites cease to exist. Ideally every internal link on a website points directly to the final destination page. Internal redirects can result in crawl waste and loss of link value, so it's a key priority to minimise redirects on your website as much as possible. You can't always control where external links to your site point to, but all your internal links should be accurate and not result in any form of redirect.
Redirects can be divided into server-side redirects and client-side redirects. Both types of redirects can be implemented in various ways. Be very careful about your choice for the type of redirect: choosing the wrong redirect for the job could lead to SEO troubles. Not sure when to use which redirect? Keep this cheat sheet handy and always pick the right redirect for the job! The server determines what URL visitors and search engines should be sent to.
When it comes to redirects, the redirect usually is your best choice. It's worth noting that browsers will often cache redirects because of their permanent nature, so keep that in mind when you're dealing with redirects.
While a visitor won't notice the difference between a redirect and a redirect, for a search engine, these are completely different signals. Be careful about using redirects when redirecting isn't permanent. If you intent to remove the redirect shortly after implementing it: be prepared to wait several weeks, if not months, to see the redirected URL back in the search engines' indexes.
One of the easiest things to forget about redirects is that they have to move with the domain. Try not to think of them as site level, but domain level.
So if you redesign the site, or move to a new domain or CMS, all those legacy redirects need to go with you. If you forget them, you create potentially bad UX for both visitors and search engines, and you can lose a lot of link value in the process.
Make sure you check all the places redirects live :. If possible, standardize on one place for all redirects now so that someday when you make a move, you're less likely to miss one. SEO specialists have conducted research on what happens if a redirect is in place for a long time, let's say longer than 6 months. They found that over time, search engines started to regard the redirect as a redirect, due to its permanent nature. This also means that in this situation the redirect will pass page authority similarly to a redirect.
Google often make statements such as redirects passing full page rank, which may be the case after a redirect has been in place for a long time, but it often hides the fact that redirects and redirects send a very different message to search engines, and how Google at least handles them.
Always pick the right redirect for the job! A redirect is a server-side redirect that ensures visitors won't be able to re-submit forms when using the Back button in their browser, because the redirect indicates that the follow-up request to the temporary URL should be made using the GET HTTP method. Don't use the redirect when you need to redirect URLs after content has moved; it's not what it's intended for.
A redirect is a server-side redirect that is the HTTP 1. The redirect was brought to life to make sure the HTTP method used to make a request doesn't change when the server responds with a redirect. Similar to the usage of redirects, a redirect should only be used when content has been temporarily moved to another URL.
At the moment, it's still unclear how search engines handle the redirect, so we recommend using the redirect instead to indicate that content has temporarily moved.
That sounds complicated, but conceptually it's not. Let's take an example:. So while the redirect is a server-side redirect, it can also be used as an internal redirect within a browser. In reality, it's not a "real redirect" that search engines will encounter, so don't think you're safe from harm when you see the redirect: it could be an internal redirect.
Read more about this on Troy Hunt's website opens in a new tab. A these days is mostly from HSTS and being browser cached, there could be a or a behind it.
You can check which bots will see by checking the status on a page with no history such as in incognito mode, or check the header response using Fetch within Google Search Console.
The redirect is the permanent version of the redirect. As can be expected with a permanent redirect, the redirect does pass page authority. Similar to the redirect, the redirect keeps the originally used HTTP method. At the moment, it's still unclear how search engines handle the redirect, so we recommend using the redirect instead to indicate that content has permanently moved.
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