The Importance of Using 301 Redirects For Your New Website

When you move your website from one CRM platform to another (GoDaddy to WordPress), change domains, or for some other reason have any chance to the URL of you website, it is extremely important to add what are known as “301 Redirects”, also known as a “Permanent Redirect”. There are many reason for this, from past viewers being able to easily find your new website content, Google, Bing, and other search engines knowing about the change, and updating their search results, to allowing those who have bookmarked or find an old link to easily go to your new website.

The following image from Search Engine Land explains the difference between a 301 Permanent Redirect, and a 302 Temporary Redirect and the importance of using 301 Redirects:

301 redirect and 302 Redirects Explained

One of the common mistakes we see, besides not doing a 301 Permanent Redirect to start with, is that a some webmasters or website owners will not do it for every page or post that is affected. For example, when we moved our website from http://tayloemarketing.com to https://tayloeinternetmarketing.com, we set up a 301 Redirect with our server, and on Google and Bing Webmaster, to let them known this is a permanent change. However, we also did that for each page we had on our old site;  http://www.tayloemarketing.com/Website_Design.html now goes to https://tayloeinternetmarketing.com/website_design/ . So if anyone comes across an old promotion we did with that URL, they will now go directly to the page they want, which discusses our website design services. Why send them to the home page, where they then have to re-navigate back to your services or product page?

Another reason is that although Google and Bing will eventually see that your old site is not active and remove those links, it does take awhile, especially if your original website was well established and indexed. If someone comes across your ‘About Us’, ‘Contact Us’, or other search listed page, they may get either a ‘This page is not available’ or if you put in a ‘404’ , they will at best go to the home page or get to a 404 landing page on your site.

Summary: When developing a new website, always make sure to use a 301 Redirect if your URLs are changing in the slightest. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us for a no-obligation consultation. Watch the video by Google’s Matt Cutts further explaining the importance of using 301 redirects.