What is 301 redirect?
The 301 redirect is the most common type of redirect and is a permanent URL move. This is a setting that automatically directs visitors of your website to a different URL than the one they came to. Technically, this is a code that tells the browser that the page it is trying to load has been removed or moved and to go to another selected site. When the redirect is properly set up, users often won't even notice that they've been redirected to another page. Using professional WordPress SEO services you’ll probably get a good advisory on that matter.
When do we use a 301 redirect?
301 redirects are used when:
- You have changed the URL of an existing website
- You have removed old content from your website and want to redirect visitors to the new page
- Your site has been redesigned and you are moving to a new domain
Other types of redirects
Other types of redirects in WordPress you need to know is redirect 302 which works temporarily. Your reader won't know the difference, but the crawlers will. They will be informed that your website is available at the new address only for a certain period of time. It does not overwrite the old address with the new one. It is useful when, for example, you sell a product periodically.
Redirect 303 is used in POST forms. If you use the contact form on your blog, this type of redirection is used. Correctly set redirect will send you a message and show a window or a notification informing about the success of the action.
Why should you use WordPress redirects?
You will surely make visitors stay on your website longer and also increase their experience if you use redirects. When users visit a specific URL and receive a 404 error, they will feel uncomfortable or have a bad impression of the page. They can leave the page immediately upon encountering this error and never visit your site again, even though it’s at the top of the search result pages. If you keep doing this, the number of visitors will decrease and the web indexes can be quite bad.
To fix this, you can use the 3xx redirects to direct visitors to your “new home address” so that users can get exactly what they need instead of seeing an error message. Moreover, if this old content has been removed, you can also use 301 redirects to direct visitors to another page with related content for reading. Maybe they will find what they need in other posts on your site.
By redirecting such links, at least users can always access some related information to find what they need on your site. Certainly, reading this content will be more interesting than reading the error message. Thus, your website's bounce rate will be lower and your visitors will likely stay longer to read more.