SOP 051: How to Implement and verify a 301 Redirect on a WordPress website
\nImplement and test 301 redirects on your Wordpress website and get rid of 404 errors or old content that is not relevant anymore.
\nLast Updated / Reviewed: 03/26/2024
\nExecution Time: 5-10 min
\nđ Goal: To properly implement and test 301 redirects on your WordPress website.
\nđ¤ Ideal Outcome: The page you want to redirect no longer displays a 404 error or the old content and is now redirecting users and search engines to the new URL. Another outcome would be when other websites make typo errors in linking to your website, you can redirect the wrong backlinks to the correct URL.
\nđ¤ Why this is important: Having users or search engines experience either 404 (Page Not Found) errors or outdated content should be avoided as much as possible.
\nđ§ Where this is done In your WordPress Admin panel.
\nđď¸ When this is done: Whenever unexpected 404 (Page Not Found) errors are detected, or you want to redirect users automatically and permanently from a URL to another.
\nđ¨ Who does this: The person responsible for website management, or SEO.
\n__â ď¸Prerequisites or requirements: __This exact process only applies to self-hosted WordPress sites.
\nClick here to get the most up-to-date version of this SOP
\nIf you havenât yet, youâll need to install âRedirectionâ on your WordPress website:
\nÂ
\nCheck âMonitor permalink changes in WordPress posts and pagesâ â This is helpful in keeping track of URL changes (e.g., You may have a seasonal landing page like âBlack Friday Sale 2020â last year, âBlack Friday Sale 2021â this year -- you can keep track of the URL changes here).
\nCheck âKeep a log of all redirects and 404 errorsâ â This will help you identify backlink errors from other websites, or your website is being hacked when unfamiliar URLs are being logged here from search engines.
\n[Optional] Check âStore IP information for redirects and 404 errorsâ â If you choose to put a check on this, you have to declare it in your privacy policy for GPDR compliance.
\nClick the âContinue Setupâ button.
\nRedirecting a single page
\nRedirecting an entire subpath to a specific page
\nMoving URL structure
\nNote: Make sure you have a backup of your website when doing 301 redirects (or that you are doing it first on a staging environment), there is the small chance you might cause a redirect loop which can make your website unavailable. There is also the small chance your redirect rule matches your Admin login page, causing your Admin Panel to become inaccessible.
\nRemember: If you havenât implemented a backup solution for your WordPress website, you can do so by following SOP 053 (web version).
\nNote 2: In rare cases, depending on the URL structure and your setup, the process covered in this SOP might not work for you. If this is the case, it is recommended to get in touch with a developer to find you a specific solution.
\nTypical use-case:
\nYou were running a flash sale on a specific landing page and the sale has ended. You might want to redirect users to the current sales page now.
\nYou detected a 404 error on your website and want to redirect users to a similar page that is working.
\nYou want to create a vanity URL. An easy to remember and easy to type URL that you can give to your users that will redirect them to the actual page that you want them to go to. Typically used when you want users to be tagged with UTM tags, but you do not want the URL to display the UTM tags.
\nNote: If you are not using UTM tags already you can start doing so by following SOP 006: (web version).
\nYou moved your website structure and now your old URLs are not working anymore. You want to redirect them to the new website structure.
\nNote: There are instances where you might not need to redirect every single page using this method. Even though it would work you may want to check if any of the other redirecting options covered on this SOP would work for you and if they would be more time efficient.
\nFor off-page SEO benefit, you can also redirect backlinks from other websites that have URL typos in them to the correct or updated URLs.
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/old-page/
\nTo
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/new-page/
\nProcedure:
\nSource URL:
\nEnter your old URL.
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/old-page/
\nRemove the domain from it.
\nExample:
\n\nQuery Parameters: âIgnore & pass parameters to the targetâ Note: If you donât select âIgnore & Pass parameters to the targetâ it will still appear to work, but users that arrive at the page through an URL containing an URL parameter (like UTM tracking for example) will not be redirected.
\nTarget URL: This is the new URL you want to redirect your visitors to, when they try to visit the source URL.
\nExample: http://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/new-page/
\nTitle: This field is for internal use only. It should explain why this redirect was implemented.
\nExample: [Discontinued Product] Blue Emojis
\nMatch: URL Only
\nWhen matched: Redirect to URL
\nWith HTTP Code: 301 - Moved Permanently
\nThatâs it! Your redirect should be ready, you should now test if it is working properly by following the last chapter of this SOP â âTesting if redirects are working properlyâ.
\nNote: Make sure you have a backup of your website when doing 301 redirects (or that you are doing it first on a staging environment) â there is the small chance you might cause a redirect loop which can make your website unavailable. There is also the small chance your redirect rule matches your Admin login page, causing your Admin Panel to become inaccessible.
\nRemember: If you havenât implemented a backup solution for your WordPress website, you can do so by following SOP 053 (web version).
\nNote 2: In rare cases, depending on the URL structure and your setup, the process covered on this SOP might not work for you. If this is the case it is recommended to get in touch with a developer to find you a specific solution.
\nTypical use-case:
\nYou used to have an entire category on blue emojis being sold on your website but you no longer sell those. You might want to redirect all those product pages beneath it to the main category with similar products (violet emojis).
\nExample:
\nRedirecting all the product URLs that were under the subpath:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/blue-emojis/
\nTo
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/violet-emojis/
\nSo, in this case, if there was a âblue emojiâ product in the URL:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/blue-emojis/product1
\nThen you will be redirecting users who try to access that link to:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/violet-emojis/
\nProcedure:
\nSource URL:
\nEnter your base URL for that category:
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/blue-emojis/
\nRemove the domain from it.
\nExample:
\n\nAdd ^ at the start and add the characters (.*) at the end.
\nExample:
\n^/blue-emojis/(.*)
\nTarget URL:
\nEnter your new URL.
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/violet-emojis/
\nRemove the domain from it.
\nExample:
\n\nTitle: This field is for internal use only. It should explain why this redirect was implemented.
\nExample: [Discontinued Category] Blue Emojis (All pages) â Violet Emojis Main Category
\nMatch: URL Only
\nWhen matched: Redirect to URL
\nWith HTTP Code: 301 - Moved Permanently
\nThatâs it! Your redirect should be ready, you should now test if it is working properly by following the last chapter of this SOP â âTesting if redirects are working properlyâ.
\nNote: Make sure you have a backup of your website when doing 301 redirects (or that you are doing it first on a staging environment) there is the small chance you might cause a redirect loop which can make your website unavailable. There is also the small chance your redirect rule matches your Admin login page, causing your Admin Panel to become inaccessible.
\nRemember: If you havenât implemented a backup solution for your WordPress website, you can do so by following SOP 053 (web version).
\nNote 2: URL structures are typically well handled and correctly redirected by WordPress simply by either renaming your category (Under âPosts â Categories â Select âQuick Editâ under the category you want to change â Change the Slug to the name of the category you want to rename) or changing your URL structure. (You can change your URL structure by following SOP 050 (web version)
\nTypical use-case:
\nYou moved the URL structure on your website and now you found 404 errors (Page Not Found) on your old URLs.
\nExample:
\nRenaming categories, such as changing the name of the category slug from /business/ to /enterprise/ and keeping all the old URLs downstream to redirect to the new slug.
\nExample:
\nRedirecting all the blog posts that were previously under the subpath:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/business-related/
\nTo
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/enterprise/
\nSo, in this case, if before changing the URL structure a typical blog post URL would be:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/business-related/we-do-awesome-301-redirects
\nThen you will be redirecting users to:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/enterprise/we-do-awesome-301-redirects
\nProcedure:
\nSource URL:
\nEnter your old URL.
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/business-related/
\nRemove the domain from it.
\nExample:
\n\nAdd the characters ^ at the start and (.*) at the end.
\nExample:
\n^/business-related/(.*)
\nTarget URL:
\nEnter your new URL.
\nExample:
\nhttp://www.asiteaboutemojis.com/enterprise/
\nRemove the domain from it.
\nExample:
\n\nAdd the characters $1 at the end.
\nExample:
\n\nTitle: This field is internal only. It should explain why this redirect was implemented.
\nExample: [Renamed Category] Business to Enterprise
\nMatch: URL Only
\nWhen matched: Redirect to URL
\nWith HTTP Code: 301 - Moved Permanently
\nThatâs it! Your redirect should be ready, you should now test if it is working properly by following the last chapter of this SOP â âTesting if redirects are working properlyâ.
\nNote: If you see a 404 (Not-found) instead, it means your website is not redirecting successfully. There are multiple reasons why this could be happening, if you have just implemented the redirect and you are using a âCacheâ plugin, you might want to refresh your websiteâs cache and try testing again.
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