Regardless of how much you plan ahead, at some point you will need to change a few URLs, whether because your site has moved or you are making SEO improvements. But what happens to visitors and search engines looking for the old URL?
When a URL changes it is also important to setup a 301 redirect forwarding visitors to the new URL. Think of it as a digital change-of-address form. This is especially true on core content, popular pages, and anything that is considered important.
Proper use of redirects helps preserve the search ranking of individual posts/pages and protect the heath of the site as a whole. They make the difference between visitors seeing an error page and the page they were looking for.
Redirect rules and equations can be written to:
- Catch multiple pages or URL variations at once. Useful when changing default slugs, removing blog post dates from the URL, rearranging/merging categories, reorganizing link structure, catching all URLs with a certain keyword, etc.
- Improve site organization. Useful when you want to redirect similar old content together around a single new piece of evergreen content.
- Restrict access to certain pages/directories. Useful if you have sections that are private or intended for members only.
- Preserve old links. Useful if you still have visitors arriving via nonexistent URLs from external links, for example custom Bitlys or even old comments/reviews/forums where you posted a link that has since been relocated.
We’ll help create all the necessary redirects associated with your site move or any SEO changes. We’ll also ensure that all of your menus and internal pages correctly link to the new page.
Service
- Update all posts/pages/widgets/menus with new URL
- Create necessary redirects for core pages
- Restructure URLs in SEO-friendly manner
Included Software
- N/A
Requirements
- WordPress and FTP access.