Why is it important to do Website Redirects?
Share on Social
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[0] => facebook
[1] => twitter
[2] => pinterest
[3] => linkedin
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[has] => Array
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[facebook] => 1
[twitter] => 1
[instagram] =>
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[houzz] =>
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Two reasons to do Redirects
“We create redirects for pages and posts that no longer exists for two reasons. One, to help maintain your existing SEO. Two, to prevent users from landing on a 404 page (page no longer exists).
There may be other websites or search engines referring/linking to a page/post. The search engines usually rework themselves within 30 days, but referring links can remain unchanged on small sites for years.
When to do Redirects
We typically do a full evaluation when we redevelop an existing website. Another time to do redirects is when you delete a page or post on an existing website.
What is a URL?
A URL is the address of a World Wide Web page. A URL is typed into a browser’s address bar. The acronym stands for “Uniform Resource Locator”. It is different than a domain, it is a domain + a slug. For example domain.com/name-of-slug.
What is a SLUG?
A SLUG is the tail of the URL. For optimal SEO the slugs should be word separated by a dash and it should match the page title. For example: /our-location
How to find a list of all URLs on a WordPress Website
For WordPress Websites using the Yoast Plugin go to the domainname.com/sitemap_index.xml
Document and Evaluate
Copy and Paste all the Existing URLs into a spreadsheet to evaluate
Options
- Keepers – When a URL is deemed a Keeper, we plan to recreate the same exact existing URLs on the new website.
- Redirect – When a URL is deemed a Redirect, we plan to redirect the old URL to a new URL.
Install Redirection Plugin
Our favorite plugin for this is called Redirection. It is a very easy-to-use plugin, just enter all of the evaluated redirects into the plugin.