One of the worst possible mistakes when redesigning a website: forgetting to set up 301 redirects. You don’t want to start your SEO all over again? So follow the guide.
Why set up redirects?
You’ve been building your web presence for years. Today your site may no longer meet your expectations: graphic aspect, content structuring, etc.
You might even want to change their domain name (e.g., change of brand name).
It is then time to think about an overhaul.
The “juice” of SEO ( Link Juice ) linked to your existing site can be transferred to the new version (up to 90-99%).
Do you still need to be methodical? Otherwise, you risk seeing your website fall in the rankings of positions.
The objective:
- take advantage of the SEO of your old site.
- A change of address is a bit like in real life; it needs to be prepared.
- Do you move? In this case, you notify the post.
- You set up redirection of your mail until all the services with which you are associated have taken into account your change of address.
- On the Internet, it’s the same principle.
Permanent redirects (301)
This is where the permanent redirects ( 301 ) come in, making it possible to link the old URLs and the new ones.
You thus indicate to the search engines (Google,…) that the indexed content has been moved permanently.
The redirection will be explicit, i.e., with a change of address (URL) visible in the address bar.
Different scenarios where to set up redirects:
- renamed file
- alias of page or article modified
- modifying permalink ( permalinks )
- deleting a product from an online store
- website merging
- change of domain name, bare domain name to www
You restructure your website, especially if you want to …
- simplify it
- focus SEO performance on a few target pages
- remove unnecessary content (almost empty page, low added value, etc.)
Temporary redirects (302)
- You will also hear about temporary redirects ( 302 ).
- Unlike 301 redirects, these do not let the SEO “juice” pass.
- As the name suggests, the 302 temporary redirects are not meant to last.
- This is to prevent your content from being temporarily moved but will soon be accessible again in the same location (e.g., put in maintenance).
- Note that in this case, the original page retains its “juice”.
Technical setup
Via .htaccess
Set up a .htaccess file at the root of your Apache web hosting server.
The use of regular expressions (e.g., *) Will allow you to deal with a full and complex set of instructions concisely.
Technical skills are a prerequisite here; the slightest error in the drafting of your .htaccess file may prevent the display of your entire website.
If your site is running under the WordPress CMS, you can use the Redirection extension to indicate the source URL and the target URL. This will automatically generate the necessary server directives.
You will first have created a correspondence table (e.g., in an Excel file) old URL => new URL, which will allow you not to forget redirection.
It’s up to you to define the most relevant matches so as not to disturb your visitors.
Tools such as ScreamingFrog will allow you to automate the recovery of an export file listing all the URLs of your website (Excel format).
Via your register
The register is the body that manages your domain name (e.g., Gandi, OVH,…).
From their client interface, you can set up web redirects without special technical knowledge.
For example, you can redirect one domain globally to another (e.g., http://www.domaine1.com to http://www.domaine2.com). Or intervene directly in the configuration of the DNS zone file – zone A, AAAA,… (advanced level).
Once your instructions are in place, be sure to test your 301 redirects.
You can proceed manually by entering your old content address to see the redirect to the landing page.
Tools such as ScreamingFrog will allow you to automate this verification.
Google Search Console: when to notify Google?
In the case of a change of domain name, the operation is not immediately taken into account by Google’s indexing robots ( crawlers ).
Enable a few weeks or a month or two to finalize this move.
To reduce the time it takes for Google to take your changes into account, you can use the Google Search Console.
First, a (free) account must be opened, and the site owner is checked.
You will indicate the change of address of your website via the option “Change of address”.
Now allow Google to view the new domain name in the search results rather than the old one for some days. Notifying Google makes it all much faster, as you can see.
Don’t forget: tell Google your new URL structure by providing it with an updated sitemap.xml file and requesting a new “Exploration”.
This will tell the crawlers the full list of pages on your new website.
Once everything is in place, regularly monitor operating errors (404 errors, etc.) and correct them on a case-by-case basis.
It is essential for your visitors’ experience and SEO not to leave requests for pages with a 404 error ( page not found ) as a response.
The old pages indexed by Google should gradually disappear to make room for new ones.
As you can see, you will have to be very careful not to encounter a significant drop in your positioning.
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