How do I do a 301 Redirect in Wordpress
-
I have several pages that are showing up as "duplicate" on my Wordpress based site based upon the structure of site. I was wondering how to do a 301 redirect for these pages
-
Hi Steven,
Alan's suggestion of installing the Wordpress SEO by Yoast plugin is right on target.
This plugin allows you to create a 301 redirect for any post and also to add the canonical link element if you prefer (only for single pages and posts).
With the plugin installed, to add a 301 redirect, just click the Advanced tab and scroll to the bottom. Enter the URL you wish to redirect the post or page to and click Update. Obviously, the plugin writes the .htaccess rule for you, but if you do want to edit the .htaccess file directly, the Yoast plugin also allows you to do this.
This plugin also includes a number of other features that allow you to deal with some of the technical shortcomings of Wordpress from an SEO point of view (duplicate content issues etc), so adds a lot of value.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Hi Steven,
I agree with Adam that editing the .htaccess file directly is the best way to do this, however in the interest of you not having that knowledge there are plenty of wordpress plugins that allow you to do 301 redirects either on the fly or a way that's easier to do.
Here is a link to a search on the wordpress site http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=301+redirect
My preference generally is to actually search for the plugins within the Wordpress Admin panel in the menu plugins, then go to add new and type in 301 redirect in the search.From there you'll be able to see a large list along with descriptions and reviews that will help you to narrow down what plugin may suit you.
It also makes the installation process easier as you don't have to do the whole download then upload stuff it just downloads directly to your Wordpress installs and you then just have to activate it and in some plugins cases change some settings.
Word of warning though doing 301s should be really thought through before you do them as it makes it permanent so just double check you have the right URLs before you commit them. A client of mine made a huge mistake that took a while to sort out.
Also something to look at and that's plugins like SEO Yoast as that can allow you to use canonical names, which could help with some types of duplicate pages and for some pages that show up in SEOmoz's campaign reports that you don't want or need showing up. I won't go into more detail as that's not what you were asking, but I figured it's related somewhat so point you in the right direction just in case
Hope that all helps.
-
I would do it with a .htaccess file. If your hosting company has cPanel (or any other good website management software) you can do this with a gui and type the old link and the link in to your browser and hit save, or you can do it manually by creating (or editing) the .htaccess file in the root of your directory. Super fast and secure way of doing it, although you do need to be running apache (et al) not IIS.
This site has some good info on it
http://www.josiahcole.com/2007/07/11/almost-perfect-htaccess-file-for-wordpress-blogs/
As with all things there are a few ways of doing it. This seems to cover most of the exploits that .htaccess files are good at blocking including the 301 redirects.
Bear in mind that .htaccess 301s using CONDITIONS are regex and certain rules apply such as escaping characters.
so this doesnt need escaping and is simple
#redirect old to new
Redirect 301 /old.php http://www.yourdomain.com/new.phpbut this does, see the . at the end of digg.com is digg.com
#block referring domains
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} digg.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F]Once you have your 301s in place check the header return to see if its working by using a simple service like this
http://www.checkmyheaders.com/index.php
Hope it works
Adam
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
-
Solve Redirect Chains
I've gotten a few Redirect Issues that involve Redirect Chains, with the https:// version redirecting to the www. version and then redirecting to the right URL. Here is an example:
On-Page Optimization | | Billywig
Schermafbeelding 2021-12-07 om 11.04.32.png I've tried setting a direct redirect between the first and the last URL, but WordPress doesn't seem to allow that (it's overwritten). I've also tried checking the internal links to make sure that none of the links are the first one. They don't seem to be there. Does anyone have any tips on solving these Redirect Chains?0 -
301 and the base URL
Hi, please bear with me as I'm pretty new to all this! I've my base URL but obviously want to add keywords to it for seo purposes. Should I redirect from the base URL to the URL with the keywords appended? So my landing page goes from say www.moz.com to www.moz.com/keywords-here. If I do that, should I replicate all the meta data (descriptions etc) on the original landing page? Or does it not matter? Thanks, Nick
On-Page Optimization | | nickwoodward0 -
How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect
Hi all I hope that someone can help.... How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect The url in question is: How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/search/Category/luxury_hotels_venues_uk_wedding_venues/exclusive_use_venues/letter/c http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/bedfordshire-weddings/franklin-park http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/chorley-weddings/curtis-bay etc, going to http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business the above is just a few examples, google webmaster is showing over 8.000 404 page not found errors. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Taiger0 -
Wordpress blog duplicate issue
So after looking at the set up of the blog ive found this. http://www.trespass.co.uk/blog/ http://www.trespass.co.uk/blog/category/news/ http://www.trespass.co.uk/blog/category/general/ http://www.trespass.co.uk/blog/category/snow/ Content shown on http://www.trespass.co.uk/blog/ can also be found on the other 3 urls. The permalink structure is set up as /%category%/%postname%/ which I want to change to just %postname% Obviously i want to make things as seo friendly as possible so any suggestions to do this right without losing any indexed pages etc. I have limited access to make changes to plugins etc aswell as these need to be done through the development company who manage our site. Cheers Robert
On-Page Optimization | | Trespass0 -
Duplicate Content from WordPress Category Base?
I recently changed my category base in WordPress and instead of redirecting or deleting the old base, WordPress kept the content up. So I now have duplicate content on two different urls - one on the old category base, one on the new category base. How should I handle this situation? The site is only a couple weeks old, if that makes any difference.
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Google found bad links delete them or 301 redirect?
we went into our google account and saw about 70 bad links that they found on our site. what's the best thing to do, seo-wise: should we go into the pages that have the bad links and delete them from the html code, or re-direct them in our htaccess script?
On-Page Optimization | | DerekM880 -
In my report of my website it was indicated that I had 19 links/locations blocked by meta-robots. What does this mean and how do I fix it. My website is a Wordpress website.
In my report of my website it was indicated that I had 19 links/locations blocked by meta-robots. What does this mean and how do I fix it. My website is a Wordpress website.
On-Page Optimization | | cyaindc0 -
WordPress (.com) and SEO
I am in my 30 day trial and very interested in my results. I think I am probably in a small minority in having the same web site up and running for approaching 17 years (registered in January 1995 :)) but only now am I looking at SEO seriously (to the extent that I want to learn more myself, as opposed to having others promise great fortune!)). Anyway, before committing to SEOMoz on an ongoing basis I want to understand just how actionable the information on my dashboard is. With that in mind, here's the first of what is (hopefully) a series questions that about low-hanging fruit I might be able to check off quickly. I recently brought up a new blog on WordPress.com (note - hosted by WordPress, not a self-hosted implementation). I have had this blog running for less than a month and have just 18 posts. And I am being overwhelmed with thoudands of errors/warnings from SEOMoz. These fall into a few categories: Duplicate content: As I understand it, each TAG I associate with a single blog post creates a unique URL. For example, if I have a single post with tags for "flowers", "wine" and "cakes", I get URLs generated such as <blog url="">/flowers, <blog url="">/wines and <blog url="">/cakes. Obviously, tagging posts is a common scenario. Must I just accept these duplicate content warnings?</blog></blog></blog> Title element too long: These are self generated by WordPress.com and the default format includes the date the post was submitted (which takes a bunch of characters followed by the title used). Many of the posts are well over 70 and this seems really easy to do. Missing meta-description: As far as I can tell, Wordpress.com doesn't give me an option to specify these. So, must I just accept these issues if I use WordPress.com (which, again, seems like a very common scenario) and how negative is this to me? Thanks. Mark
On-Page Optimization | | MarkWill0