301 redirects are incredibly important for the SEO of a client’s website any time the URLs are changed, and it alarms us that we are still seeing people not using them.  I thought I’d write a quick reminder about why 301 redirects are so important.

We’ve talked in the past about when you might need to use 301 redirects – basically, any time you need to change the URLs on your website, you need to use them. 

So what do they do?

Let’s say you have a page about holidays in England, and you want to change its URL from www.yourwebsite.com/catid=7 to www.yourwebsite.com/holidays-in-england.  With the /catid=7 URL, the page is ranked on Page 1 of the Google search results for various key phrases relating to holidays in England.  Obviously you will want the new URL to be ranked for those phrases as well.

In the eyes of search engines, these are completely different URLs.  This means that they will be ranked differently.  A brand new URL, like the /holidays-in-england one, will begin at the bottom of the rankings and have to work its way up.

Is there any way to avoid losing the SEO assets of the /catid=7 URL?

This is where 301 redirects come in.

301-redirects

For search engines, 301 redirects are a clear and SEO-friendly message that www.yourwebsite.com/catid=7 has been replaced with www.yourwebsite.com/holidays-in-england.  Any SEO assets attached to the old URL – such as Page 1 rankings – will be transferred to the new one, so that it does not have to start from scratch.

It is for this reason that 301 redirects are so important.  Do not forget to do them!