301 Redirects: 60 Second Hacks to Grow Your Business

In today's 60 second hack to grow your business, we will explain how and why to use 301 redirects!

A 301 redirect is known as a server response that moves traffic from a website address or URL that no longer exists onto the new page at a different URL. You would use a 301 redirect when you have created a new version of an old page on your site that you intend to shut down. The redirect will look at the old URL and force traffic onto the new one. Without the web server redirecting traffic from the old URL, your website visitors end up stuck. Even worse yet, search engine webcrawlers won’t know about the new page, and all of the value you had on the old page goes away. A 301 redirect tells search engines, what you knew about this page is actually over here now, and don’t toss out the link authority that page had already built.

How Do You Implement a 301 Redirect?

One technical way to do this is by editing the sites .htaccess file. Though, there are easier methods depending on your platform or content management system. In Cpanel, look for the redirects interface. In Wordpress there are a variety of plugins that make it easy to manage your redirects. All DNN & NopCommerce websites made by Foremost Media use a module named FM SEO Helper that manages 301 redirects with ease.

Website Redesigns

Perhaps the most important time to use 301 redirects is when you move your website from one content management system to another. Many times the URL structure is different between these softwares. If you don’t get ahead of your redirects when your site launches, you’ll certainly lose search engine ranking and confuse some website visitors.