Understanding Redirects: Types, SEO Impact, and Usage

A redirect is a method used to send both people and search engine bots to a new URL when they attempt to access an old URL that has changed locations. It's similar to how mail forwarding works with the United States Postal Service (USPS) when you move to a new address. When a user or bot requests the old location, they get forwarded to the new location. Redirects are crucial for maintaining the SEO value of a page when its URL changes.

Redirects can be categorized as either permanent or temporary, and they can be implemented on the server-side or client-side. Permanent redirects, such as HTTP 301 and HTTP 308, indicate that a resource has moved permanently and are a strong hint for canonicalization, signaling that signals like links should consolidate to the new URL. Temporary redirects, like HTTP 302 and HTTP 307, suggest a temporary move, and the signals often consolidate to the original URL. Redirects are essential for SEO because they help combine signals between pages and assist search engines in determining which page to display to users.

To implement permanent redirects for SEO, you should use them when you permanently change the URL of a webpage, migrate to a new domain, switch from HTTP to HTTPS, fix duplicate content issues, merge pages or websites, or change your URL structure. HTTP 301 and HTTP 308 are common server-side methods, with 308 retaining the HTTP method of the original request. JavaScript redirects and meta refresh with 0 seconds are client-side options, but they are less reliable and not preferred for SEO. Permanent redirects signal to search engines to consolidate link signals to the new URL.

Best practices for implementing redirects include:

• Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS to ensure secure connections.
• Using HSTS to create 307 redirects and prevent access to non-secure content.
• Redirecting relevant old content to retain link value and improve rankings.
• Avoiding long redirect chains and redirect loops to prevent crawl issues.
• Not using overly broad redirects to ensure users are directed to the appropriate content.
• Keeping redirects for at least one year as recommended by Google to ensure signals pass permanently.
• Redirecting other files like images and PDFs during migrations, not just pages.

To check how Google is treating a redirect, you can use Google Search Console:

1. Go to Links > External Links > Top linked pages.
2. Find the new URL in the report and click it (use the Target page filter to help).
3. Filter the links by Site and paste in referring domains to the old page one by one (found in the Referring Domains report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer).
4. If there are no matches for several referring domains, Google may be treating the redirect as a soft 404. If there is a match and you see the old URL in the Target URL column, Google is consolidating links at the new URL.