301 redirects

     Redirection is one of the processes of SEO. Redirection is a process of forwarding the site’s URL to a different URL. Want to know more about redirects and how to use them according to your website? Keep reading. 

What is the redirect?

     Redirect is a way to send the search engine and its user to a different location(URL) on the internet. There are three main types of redirects. 

1. 301 redirects.
2. 302 redirects. 
3. Meta refresh. 

301 redirects- Moving permanently:

     The 301 redirect mans the webpage is permanently moved from the previous location to a new location. This type of redirect is mostly done by many websites when they want to move the pages to a different location. The 301 is the status code of the redirected page. To put this process more thoroughly, let’s say you have moved the webpage of www.bestdrone.com/blogs to www.bestdrones.com/articles (this link does not exist, it’s just an example). 

     If you click the blog web page, the browser tells the search engine that the page location has changed permanently and will remain there. And the browser takes you the new webpage location. Most of the websites use 301 redirects if they need to relocate any pages. 

302 redirects- Moving temporarily:

     According to reports, Google sometimes treats 301 and 302 redirects in the same way. The HTTP of the URL will determine its working And1.0 means the site is moved temporarily whereas 1.1 implies the site is found. In any case, 301 redirect is best for webpage’s redirection. 

Meta refresh:

     Meta refresh is the ones that redirect in the same page rather than moving to a different location. This type of redirects is not advised by SEO experts due to their poor usability and takes a lot of time. Usually, meta refresh comes with countdown link and tags like “is the page is not redirected in 5 seconds, click here”. You might have seen these types of redirection in torrent sites. However, many authority sites do not use these types of redirects due to poor usability. 

How to perform a 301 redirect?

     The most common way to perform a 301 redirect is to edit your webpage/site’s .htaccess filetype. If you can’t find your .htaccess file, there may be two reasons behind that. First one is that you may not have a .htaccess file from the beginning. So you have to create one using notepad. The second one is that your site may not be accessed through Apache webserver. Apache web server is an open-source web server used by millions. 

     There are many types of web servers available like Windows/IIS, XAMPP and Nginx. But Apache web server is the only server which uses .htaccess file. So if you are using a different web server, find a suitable filetype to edit your redirection. 

The effects of 301 redirect on your SEO:

     The 301 redirects affect the SEO factor of your website. Many SEO experts believe 301 redirects and PageRank have a co-relating relationship. PageRank is a Google method of ranking the page based on the quality and quantity of the links. Is PageRank important? Yes. Definitely YEs. Google has announced that they still use PageRank as a ranking factor. 

     But how does this has anything to do with 301 redirect? In 2016 time period, if any page is redirected to any other location, there might be a loss of PageRank. We don’t know any specific number, but the experts say that around 15% of PageRank loses. But in 2019 Google announced that 30X redirect would not fail PageRank. This was excellent news for the SEO experts. 301 redirects sometimes will also boost your page’s organic traffic. 

Uses of 301 redirect for your site:

     There are many instances where a 301 direct comes in handy. They are useful in the following scenario. 

Changing your page’s URL:

     Is your old URL poor? Want to move to a new URL. 301 redirect will help move your page if your site performs poorly due to URL issues you need to move them. And 301 redirect have been proven efficient than any other redirects. 

Changing your page’s content:

     Sometimes the content in your page needs changing. You need to direct the range, especially if you are working on a new webpage template. So be prepared and use the appropriate tool in moving your content to a different page. 

Domain migration:

     This is a critical case which needs a 301 redirect. If you plan to shift your domain from one location to another, then I advise you to use 301 redirections. It might be easy to move the contents of your environment but be faithful to your content. It would help if you were crucial to have sensible redirection to pages. You should not disrupt the user experience of your previous domain. 

     Note that when you are moving the domain, it should redirect from your previous old URL. If your new part is not connected to your old domain, then it might confuse your visitors. This might be a difficult task for beginners. So I advise you to get guidance from any web developers and any IT partners. 

How to fix redirect issues- Few tips:

     I am having some 301 redirecting issues. These tips will help you to overcome them.

Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS:

     Remember that HTTPS sites are secure than HTTP site. SO if your site is not HTTPS, it’s better to change it now. Also, HTTPS is a ranking factor by Google. So make sure your HTTP site is redirected to the HTTPS site. Just click on the link and check if your site is HTTP:// or HTTPS://. Suppose its HTTP:// the site has been successfully redirected. 

Remove the sites with 301 status codes:

     To rank the pages according to the PageRank value, Google crawls through your website using the sitemap. A page with 301 status code means that page no longer exists. But if your sitemap has this page, then Google needs to crawl through this page to make it unnecessary wastage of crawl budget. 

     So what you should do is remove the pages which have 301 status code from your site map. But how do you identify whether your page has a 301 status code? That’s where tools like HTTPS code checker come into play. Use this tool to determine your HTTP status and remove the unwanted 301 status coded pages. 

301 redirect for organic traffic:

     You might think how do 301 redirects help you with your page’s organic traffic. Let me explain you with cocktail metaphor. Imagine you have Pepsi. And you have Vodka on the other hand. Both are good in their perspective. But when you combine them. Boom! You have something extraordinary when they are together. 

     Likewise, the pages on your sites might be useful when alone. But when redirected to another location, then it gains even more traffic than before. By doing this redirection process, you can improve the traffic of two ordinary pages into something extraordinary. We came to know how this improves your page’s organic traffic. Now the “why” part. 

1. The first reason this increases the organic traffic is due to the combined authority of the two pages. When you redirect the pages to a similar content page in your site, it will work wonder for your traffic spike. 
2. The second reason is the content of your pages. Only if your content is excellent and engaging, this redirection process for organic traffic works. If your content is uninteresting, your visitors might get disappointed with your page. So work on your content. Know that “Content is always the king”.