Redirection
Redirection is process of forwarding one URL to a different
URL. There are three main kinds of redirects online; 301, 302 and meta refresh.
Types of Redirects
- 301 ('Moved Permanently') -
Recommended for SEO
- 302 ('Found' or 'Moved
Temporarily')
- Meta Refresh
What is a Redirection?
A redirect is a way to
send both users and search engines to a different URL than the one they
originally requested.
301 Moved Permanently
A 301
Redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice
(ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status codes for
this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method
for implementing redirects on a website.
Create a
.htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in
to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website
(i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)
Options
+FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
Please
REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.
302 Found (HTTP 1.1) / Moved
Temporarily (HTTP 1.0)
A 302
Redirect is a temporary redirect and passes 0% of link juice (ranking power)
and in most cases should not be used. The Internet runs on a protocol called
HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dictates how URLs work. It has two
major versions, 1.0 and 1.1. In the first version 302 referred to the status
code 'Moved Temporarily'. This was changed in version 1.1 to mean 'Found'.
Meta Refresh
Meta
refreshes are a type of redirect that is executed on the page level rather than
the server level (They are usually slower and not a recommended SEO technique).
They are most commonly associated with a 5 second count down with text "If
you are not redirected in 5 seconds, click here". Meta refreshes do pass
some link juice but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to usability and
the loss of link juice passed.