Upgrading Your Website? Don’t Forget 301 Redirects or You’ll Be Sorry
There may be many reasons why a company wishes to upgrade their website, such as not enough traffic, more traffic but less conversion, redesign, etc. Upgrading the website is a delicate process, but redirecting your website’s ranking in SERPs(search engine results page) and existing web traffic to your new domain involves more work and analysis. The SEO(search engine optimization) experts strive hard to learn the new technology and implement the newly devised strategies into practice. 301 redirect helps redirect all your website’s traffic and ranking in SERPs to your new domain.
301 redirect: If a company plans to change their URL(uniform resource locator) or their website is under redesign, a 301 redirect commands Google and users redirect from the current page to the new temporary or permanent page. Instead of the old page, 301 redirect helps redirect to the new or correct page by informing search engines and visitors. It is an HTTP status code that directs users, Google or other search engines to display the final version of your website. 301 redirect helps transfer your existing SEO(search engine optimization) history to the new location, thereby preventing your website’s current position in the SERPs(search engine results page).
Things to keep in mind while redirecting: An SEO analyst always does a compendious study before implementing SEO strategies. They help improve the site’s performance and ranking in SERPs by working on indexing. A few things to be kept in mind while redirecting are
? Check the incoming links, both the internal and external links, to your page, and point the internal link to the new page. To maintain the site’s authority, update the incoming external link.
? Check for outbound links(linking your site to an external site) and outlinks(links pointing to your site), and some pages depend on the link equity that a page has.
? Ensure to check the canonical tags and readjust the HTML tags to prevent the pages that have a canonical pointing to the redirected page.
? After rearranging the canonical tags and links, start executing the 301. Make these changes only after being sure that your company will send the link equity to the new page.
? Check if all the elements are executed correctly by running a crawl.
? Revise the XML sitemap and upload it to Google Search Console.
Tips While Redirecting a Website: Before setting all 301 redirects, refrain from moving to a new domain. If not, Google will consider the content in your new website as duplicate content or will crawl your site with no links. The most forgotten thing in SEO is the setting of 301 redirects between your http:// and http:// WWW domain versions. Try avoiding redirect chains between the first and the final destination URL and Let Google know that your old domain is replaced with a new one by using Google Search Console. Google considers this page brand new, so it will take some time for Google to restore your previous ranking position in SERPs. A meticulous SEO strategy is crucial for migrating a website successfully.
At some point, the pages may become obsolete, so in these cases, the pages are optimized by presenting clean URLs or using HTTPS Protocol. 301 redirects prevent the users from landing on a 404-page error and help Google crawl your new domain effectively like your old domain without compromising the ranking and traffic. If you are looking to redesign your existing website or need a new website for your business , contact Devam Technologies.
