301 redirects: don’t forget them!

Building authority takes a lot of time, even more energy and possibly a lot of money. All too often, this goes horribly wrong when launching a new version of the website or removing existing pages. Never forget to set up 301 redirects!

What is a 301 redirect?

It’s all too easy to make a mistake. Often without even realising it. Google indexes URLs and the content of those web pages. If the URL changes, you’re effectively creating a new URL. The problem is that the old URL is still in the Google index and leads to an error message; the so-called 404 page. The reason this is called a 404 page is because a dead URL returns an HTTP status of 404. A ‘valid’ web page returns an HTTP status code of 200. A 301 redirect tells a search engine that the relevant 404 page has been moved to the new 200 page.

301 redirects are valuable

If you do not set up a 301 redirect for a 404 page, you will lose link equity. This has a negative impact on your website’s authority. A 301 redirect is valuable for several reasons:

1. It transfers the link value from the old location to the new one.
2. Websites that link to your website may decide to remove the hyperlink; and you don’t want that to happen.
3. Visitors coming via Google won’t be met with an error message, and you’ll keep their attention.

As soon as Google encounters the 301 redirect whilst re-indexing the web page, it will replace the old URL with the new one. It is important to retain the 301 redirects, because if an external website links to a specific article on your website, you will want to retain that traffic.

Never delete web pages

Our advice is never to delete web pages. Google wants websites to grow with high-quality content. Older articles gain authority over time. If you monitor which articles are easily found on Google via your analytics, you can take a critical look at the content and update it where necessary. Deleting products isn’t advisable either, because if a product needs replacing, many people will still search for the old product name. Your CMS should allow you to place older products in an archive, where they are not visible in the product overview but are still accessible via Google. You can indicate that the product is no longer available, whilst also offering alternatives, thereby providing the searcher with a solution. So never delete web pages!

Add automatic 301 redirects

Many CMSs generate the URL based on the title of the article or page. If the title changes, either the URL must remain the same or the CMS must automatically create a 301 redirect from the old location to the new one. Only SEO specialists take 301 redirects into account; everyone else does not. Whatever you can automate in this area – or have automated – make sure you do so.

Launching a new website?

With a new website, there’s a very high chance that the navigation structure and URL structure will be different from those on the current website. The current website is fully indexed by Google. Without 301 redirects, you’ll be throwing away a large part of your authority when you move the site. This sounds daft, and it is! Many websites disappear completely from Google’s rankings after the new website is launched.

• Map out all indexed web pages in advance. To do this, use several sources, such as an SEO tool, Google Analytics and/or Google Search Console. Export all the data to a spreadsheet and merge it into a single column containing unique URLs.
• Search for a new location. In the spreadsheet, add the new URL to a new column for each row.
• Implementing 301 redirects. Please send the complete spreadsheet to the web developer.

Make sure you factor in the 301 redirects right from the start when requesting a quote for the development of the new website. Many digital agencies either don’t do this or, by the end of the project, don’t have enough hours left to implement them. It can be a huge amount of work to map out 301 redirects, but it’s absolutely vital. When any new website is launched, rankings tend to drop, but if the 301 redirects are properly set up, you’ll quickly regain your previous ranking.

Ultimately, you’ll want to keep improving your search visibility. Call on SEO Ninja to help you achieve this. Often, you can achieve good results with just a few simple tips. 301 redirects are one such example.We drink our coffee black 😉