301 redirection help needed!
-
Hi all,
So if we used to have a domain (let's say olddomain.com) and we had a new site created at newdomain.com how do we properly setup redirects page to page. Caveat, the urls have changed so for instance the old page oldomain.com/service is now newdomain.com/our-services on the new site.
- Do we need to have hosting on the old site?
- Do we need to setup individual 301s for each page corresponding to the new page?
Just looking for the easiest way to do this CORRECTLY.
Thanks,
Ricky
-
Good one Paul - is there an article on this you can point me at?
Thanks
-
Hi Paul, thanks! This is what I was looking for. So as long as we forward the old domain, it looks like we can set up the individual URL redirects simply using a plugin in Wordpress. Got it to work!
-
There's no reason to keep the old hosting just for the redirects. And that introduces a real weak point as at some future date, someone who doesn't realise it's still running only an htaccess file will delete what they think is unnecessary hosting.
Instead, use DNS of the old domain to point it to the new domain and then write the redirects in the new domain's htaccess.
Paul
P.S. And yes, you'll need to write redirects for each old URL that changes. If there are patterns of URLs, it's worth using regex to cut down the number of redirects written.
-
You have to do page by page like Nigel suggested that is the best way to do it and keep them in place for ever!.
-
Hi Ricky
That is pretty much exactly what you need to do.
301 olddomain to newdomain
Then at page level
301 olddomain/services to newdomain/new-services
You will need hosting on the old site but only really so that the .htaccess file can be filled with redirects. If you let the domain expire then Google et al won't see the redirects. If there are inbound links from other websites then you need to do this to maintain link equity to the new domain and pages.
Regards
Nigel
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Default Wordpress 301 Redirects of JS and CSS files. Bad for SEO & How to Fix?
Hi there: We are developers with some digital marketing expertise, but a current issue has us perplexed. An outside SEO firm has asked us to clean up a large number of 301 redirects. Most of these are 'default' Wordpress behavior that relate to calling the latest version of a JS or CSS file. For instance, a JS file is called with this: https://websitexyz.com/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js?ver=4.9.1 but ultimately redirects to this: https://websitexyz.com/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js. We are being asked to prevent the redirect from happening by, presumably, calling the ultimate file to begin with. The issue is that, as far as we know, there's no easy way to alter WP behavior to call the ultimate file to begin with. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
301 redirecting to anchor points
A client has just given me a list of redirect URLs as requested of them. However, they're wanting to redirect a bunch of pages to various anchor points within the same page. For example: /pages/about might redirect to: /pages/our-story#our-mission And: /pages/history might redirect to: /pages/our-story#history Is there any problem with this? I've never seen or been asked to redirect like this before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Can I undo 301 redirects to purchase site
A website I am thinking of buying has 301 redirected all pages on his site to one page that explains the site is closing down. If I tell him to change the 301 to 302s will I be able to recover the old pages on the site and keep the authority, rankings and link power of the old pages and not the "Closing page"? Is all i have to do is undo the 301 redirects and everything will go back to how the site was before the 301s were in place? Or will I lose all the link power on individual pages because they already transferred to the "Closing page"? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atomiconline0 -
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
To Redirect or Not
I have a strange situation and looking for advice on how well a permanent redirect of url will work. I have an eCommerce site called twpstain.com. This site sells TWP Deck stain and the URL/Content is fully owned by me. We do not however own the TWP brand and have always operated with permission from the manufacturer as an Authorized dealer. Circumstance have come up where they now want to be in control of all URLS that have the name "TWP" in them. Not sure if they legally can do this but they can cut me off with product if I do not comply. My options are: 1. A permanent redirect of entire site to new URL that does not have the word "TWP" in the url. 2. Give them the URL but they are willing to have me use the URL as I have in the past. A contract for this would be drawn up to cover me for years to come and possibly offer compensation if they decide not to renew. My concerns are numerous but the question for the Moz community is to how well the 301 redirect will work and will I lose my rankings? I currently dominate the rankings for my site and I very concerned that there will be major loss of sales and traffic. Any help or opinions on this would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dogtopiamichigan0 -
301 Redirection
Hi there guys, I have a question about redirection. My boss has just bought a new domain name and he wants it to redirect to our current site when looking for specific products. www.example.com is our current website www.productname.com is the new domain So the new domain would be redirected to example.com. Would that be considered against Google Policies? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
When is it time to kill 301 redirects
3 months we updated our site design design and as such lots of page urls changed. At the time we 301 redirected about 100 pages. (All pages are on the same domain - 301 redirects like .com/about-us/company to .com/company) Anyhow my question is should I leave these redirects active indefinitely or kill them assuming value has passed through by now? Your Thoughts are welcomed. Thanks, Glen.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdvanceSystems0 -
Any way to find which domains are 301 redirected to competitors' websites?
By looking at the work from an SEO collegue it became clear that his weak linkbuilding graph probably is not the cause for his good rankings for a pretty competitive keyword. (also no social mentions where found) I was wondering what it could be, site structure and other on page optimization factors seems to be ok and I don't think there will be exceptionally good or bad user behavior... Finally I looked at the competitors and found that they have more links, better content en better design, so I got a little stuck. The only reason I can think of is that he is doing 301 redirects (or is rel=canonical tags). Is there a way to trace these redirects back to the source in order to include this important variable in your competitor research? thnx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djingel10