How To Create perfect redirects With WordPress? - Paragon Themes
How To Create perfect redirects With WordPress?

 Outdated content, 404 dead-ends, and broken external links are not at all conducive to great user experience. Too many of them will make you have to say goodbye to your traffic as your visitors run away without hesitation. Nobody is going to stick around and check out a website that is not delivering anything. 

So, what is the solution you have got?

Luckily, there is something you can do to stop losing your traffic coming from desktop or mobiles. There is a function called redirecting that allows you to fix the issues mentioned above and make sure you’re still able to get all the benefits of that old content you had.

Before jumping into how to create a redirect, let’s take a closer look at redirects. Simply put, a redirect is an instruction telling the server to send a visitor to a different page than the one they clicked on. 

Let’s say you plan to delete an article written on new features of Windows because the article referred to features in Windows 7, and no one wants to know about Windows 7 anymore. 

However, the post and the address is indexed, and the outdated content is shown up on the search engine results page.

If you simply delete the article, your visitors will see a 404 dead-end page. However, you can instruct the server to send the visitors to a different page when they click on the link with a redirect.

The two benefits you will be getting from applying redirects are that you will pass on the link juice of the original article to the updated article, increasing its rank and improving your bounce rate

Secondly, you also pass along the traffic. In other words, instead of those visitors going back or closing the tab, they’ll stick around because you have provided them what they were looking for.

This approach makes sure that you don’t suffer from losing traffic and ensure that your traffic sticks around.

The way redirects can be used for great results

There are many types of redirects you can use in your WordPress site. The most common types of redirects are 301 redirects, 302 redirects, and Meta refresh browser redirects.

301 and 302 redirects are the most widely used WordPress redirects. Although both serve the same purpose, they both differ in some aspects. 

A 301 WordPress redirect is a permanent redirect that tells the browser and web crawlers that they have always redirected the traffic to a new address. 

When a search engine comes across a 301, it automatically replaces the old URL with an updated one. It also passes on the link juice, so the new URL shows up in the same SERP position as the old one if the content is similar. 

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. When a search engine or browser comes across a 302, they replace the original URL with an updated one, nor they pass the link juice. This occurred because the code of 302 redirect tells the search engine that the WordPress redirect is temporary, and the situation will revert to normal soon.

302 redirect is very useful when you are running some maintenance on your WordPress website. In this situation, you will use a 302. Instead of taking down the page permanently, use a 302 redirect until the issues are entirely resolved. 

One thing you must keep in mind while using the redirect is that every redirect slows down your website. The change won’t necessarily be noticeable, but if you use a redirect for every menu item, it will slow down your website to a crawl. A good rule of thumb is only to use redirects when there is absolutely no other choice.

How to Create a Redirect

So now, let’s dive into the ways you can create redirects in WordPress. In this blog post, we will be explaining how to create redirects manually by using .htaccess and automatically using plugins.

Creating Redirects using .htaccess files

Your first step should be creating a backup of your .htaccess file. Messing with .htaccess files is not something you will always prefer as one wrong character, and you might find your website no longer working. 

If you are a user of the Apache server, you can create a 301 or 302 redirect in the .htaccess file with a simple code line that will include the old URL  and a new URL. 

The lines of code must look something like this:

Redirect 301 /oldcontent.html https://yoursite.com/updatedcontent.html

Similar code can be used to redirect your website. If you want to redirect your WP website, you should type:

Redirect 301 / http://www.yournewsite.com

To check if you have done right, simply go to the page you want to redirect from, and you should be immediately transferred to the new URL.

Using Plugins to Create Redirects 

The method described above is the manual approach. However, it’s a bit risky as no one wants to mess with .htaccess files. There is another safer way to create plugins in WordPress. There are quite a few great WordPress plugins free and let you develop redirects with no hassle. With WordPress plugins, you will not have to worry about making a mistake and ruining your website.

Plugins like Redirection let you create redirects for your website in a matter of a few seconds. It’s that simple and easy.

The online Casino market uses these types of plugins a lot to get traffic flowing through their website without any blockade. Sites like no wager no deposit bonus use plugins to transfer traffic from one removed game pages to new ones seamlessly. 

End Words

Redirects are a great innovation and completely changed the way of internet usage. Millions of websites use redirects to transfer their traffic and avoid traffic loss.

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