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
-
Site has 302 redirects for HTTP to HTTPS when it should be 301
Hey all, In the latest Moz crawl, certain pages on our website have shown as having 302 redirects for the http to https, but not all. There should be a 301 solution, but wanted to see if anyone had any advice or guidance. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Julzseo1 -
Removing & redirecting old pages
Hi In the case of an e-commerce store when you remove/delete an old sub department page because you no longer sell the products that page was for can you/should you redirect it to its parent main category/dept page first or just delete and let become a 404 ? Being a sub department it is obviously closely related to the main category/dept but seem strange to 301 it since its not really moved permanently to that page but i hear that's what people do to transfer that pages authority before deleting it so its not lost cheers dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
Help an SEO-DUMMY : ) Established hyphenated domain...redirect?!...new domain?!
Hello, everybody. I am definitely not an SEO specialist. My family owns a transportation business (since 2010) and i am the one responsible for the website (until we find a good SEO company). My question: Several years ago i did not know much about SEO and have chosen a domain name www.airporttransportation-limo.com (it is not the actual domain...just an example...i'm not sure if i can post the real website here) and another domain that is just the name of our company (it also has hyphen in it). Both websites are still doing good and we receive quite a bit of traffic, but i read more an more about how hyphenated domains and domains with more then two worlds can be bad for your SEO/business/traffic. I feel like the websites are stuck and not moving up any more..could that be because of the hyphens? I registered another domain that is the name of our company (which is well known by now) without any hyphens. Now i have no idea what to do. Should i redirect both old domains (old websites are different and do not have duplicate content) to the new one, or should i just redirect the old domain (just the name of our company with hyphen) to a new one (without hyphen) and leave the www.airportransportation-limo.com as is... Or maybe i should register another domain without any hyphens (two words only) and redirect the www.airporttransportation-limo.com to it... I am very nervous to make any changes and loose all the traffic. My family will kill me. Please help! I'm lost!
On-Page Optimization | | KL20140 -
Redirecting to homepage ok?
I deleted a bunch of category pages (renamed mostly actually and thought they'd be auto redirected like my blog posts are but they weren't) so I used a plugin that reroutes any 404 page to the homepage. Is that the best thing to do in this situation? Google Webmasters says there are about 84 404-errors and this should get rid of those right? Is there anything SEO BAD about doing it this way?
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
WordPress and category/subcategory landing pages
Hey, Here's my situation. I'm building a WordPress blog for product reviews of a certain niche. Current category setup is 4 main categories with 4-8 subcategories each. Each subcategory has a unique description that will help it become a landing page for certain keywords, after which it lists the posts from that subcategory. The posts will always be assigned to a sub-category, never to a main category. My issue is what to do with the main categories. They're fairly general so they're not really targeting any keywords, and don't have any unique descriptions attached to them. I was thinking of choosing between three options on designing the main category pages: List the subcategories + normal posts loop that bring the latest posts from the subcategories (may create a lot of duplicate content since the subcategory pages are also listing their posts) List only the subcategories (+ maybe just the latest post from each subcategory) Don't link the main categories at all, instead only use them to create dropdowns for the subcategories So, what would you choose, and why?
On-Page Optimization | | mihaiaperghis0 -
Wordpress category links not working
Hi All of sudden, my category links are not working. Any tips on figuring out what's causing this? Looks like permalink problem with newer wordpress version. I turned off all the plugins see if this cause any problems. Still not being able to find any option. Here's my site http://www.hibebefetaldoppler.com/fetal-doppler-questions-and-answers/ Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | BistosAmerica0 -
Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?
Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy
On-Page Optimization | | MeghanPrudencio0