301 redirect are so important but yet why? Well here is the 411 on the 301 redirect: Did you know II: Make sure you redirect links after a domain change
Changing Your Website
So you’ve have a informational website, a blog, an ecommerce website and it’s time to make some changes. Let’s say you moved your site to a new domain, or that your website has undergone a redesign. Good idea. It’s always a good idea to keep things fresh. What you don’t want is for all of your backlinks to be messed up as a result. The URL of some of your pages could change as a result of changes or updates to your site.
An example is that maybe your website has an address that is www.xyz.com/about but in your redesign you change the url to www.xyz.com/aboutus.
It seems pretty innocent. No big deal right? Or is it?
It’s important that you want to make sure that visitors from other sites who have linked to you in the past will still be able to find you. IF the URL has changed, they will be given a 404 page error instead of the page they were looking for. Nobody wants that. Instead you want them to see your awesome redesigned page, not a 404.
301 redirect
Lucky for you, there’s a solution. You can have your web developer set up a 301 Redirect from the previous page to the current page. This way, visitors are automatically sent to the correct place when they click on a link to your site. If you have access to your files and server and feel confident that you can do the redirect yourself, here’s more information.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You definitely want to take the time to make sure your backlinks are working properly, because they are extremely important for SEO. By using a 301 redirect, search engines like Google give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and as a result, consider those websites more important than others. And you want your awesome site to show up on the front page of a Google search, not pages back simply because you didn’t have the 411 on the 301 Redirects.
Call Us & We Can Help!
While setting up a 301 redirect isn’t a terribly difficult task it can be time consuming and a little confusing the first time you do it. You’ll get the hang of it but if you want some help then just let us know! Smack Smog can help you with 301’s and just about any other issue you may be having. Smack Smog is here to help.
