How to set up redirects on WordPress?

Deleting a page on your website. At first glance, this seems like a simple operation that you've probably already performed several times. A couple of clicks, and it's done. 

It's simple. It's quick… but be careful. This action can have negative consequences for your site's SEO, as well as for the user experience!

To avoid this, Adding a WordPress redirect is essentialDo you want to know how to proceed?

This article will explain everything. By the end of your reading, you will know why and in what situations to add redirects. 

And you will especially have in your hands a step-by-step method for setting up redirects on your WordPress site, with or without a plugin.

What is a redirect on WordPress?

A redirection consists of redirecting the URL – web address – of a piece of content on your WordPress site (page or article) to another URL, either permanently or temporarily. 

Thanks to this natural referencing technique, Internet users and search engine robots are informed that content no longer exists. or that it is no longer relevant, while being automatically redirected to an up-to-date URL. 

In the background, here's how a redirect on WordPress works. When a user clicks or visits URL A (e.g., https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/support-wordpress/), they will automatically be sent to URL B (e.g., https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/maintenance-wordpress/).

What are the different types of redirection?

The most common HTML redirect is the 301 redirectThis is a permanent redirect – like a 308 redirect – which implies "that the original URL should no longer be used and that the new URL is preferred", details the Mozilla web browser documentationIt is made "to last forever". 

You will use it, for example, when you delete a page or article from your WordPress website. 

As a WordPress user, The 301 redirect is the one you will use most often on a daily basis.This article will therefore focus primarily on this type of redirection on WordPress.

However, this isn't the only type you'll encounter. Besides permanent redirects, there are two other types of redirects: 

1. Temporary redirections (302, 303, and 307 redirects). The most well-known of these is undoubtedly the 302 redirect. It specifies that a web page is currently unavailable. Your visitor is temporarily redirected to a different URL while an operation is performed, such as updating content or the maintenance of the page. In this case, search engines do not remember the temporary link, Mozilla explains. 
2. Special redirections (300 and 304). It's very unlikely you'll ever use them, as they are very specific. A 304 redirect, for example, redirects a page to the locally cached copy. 

In what situations is creating a redirection necessary?

Redirecting a page permanently may not mean much to you, but you will see that using a 301 redirect on WordPress is essential in several situations.

Thanks to redirections, you will prevent your visitors from encountering 404 errors, which indicate that a page no longer exists or cannot be found.

In practice, here are several situations that require the implementation of 301 redirects: 

• the removal of content (page/article). When you perform this operation, the URL remains valid (on the internet, not everything disappears like in a word processing program). You must therefore redirect the deleted URL to a page of your choice, such as the homepage or a new, updated page;
• changing the permalinks of your siteThese represent the web addresses (URLs) of the pages/articles on your website. If you modify them, the structure of your URLs will change, which requires a 301 redirect;
• a change of domain name, following a redesign of your WordPress website or a rebranding; 
• modifying certain URLs in order to optimize themFor example, to make them shorter, more understandable and readable on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets);
• moving your site to a new directory ;
• the transition of your site from HTTP to HTTPSin order to strengthen its security.

Why create redirects on WordPress?

As you have just seen, creating a WordPress redirect is necessary in several situations. It is also essential for two main reasons.

A redirect on WordPress preserves the user experience

Setting up a redirect on WordPress primarily prevents your visitors from enjoy an optimal browsing experience on the pages/articles of your website.  

If you do not redirect an outdated URL, your visitors will land on a 404 page and will not find what they came looking for.

Their user experience will deteriorate, and that's something to avoid. Indeed, 88% of users are more likely not to return to a website where they had a bad user experience. 

Furthermore, thanks to an optimal user experience, you will improve your conversions and limit the negative impact on your revenue. 

According to a study by Amazon Web Services, online stores lose 35% of their sales due to a poor user experience.

Consider creating custom 404 pages on your website to satisfy your users. To do this, you can use the templates offered by your preferred page builder (Elementor, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, etc.), if you are familiar with this type of tool. If you prefer not to work with code, you can also use dedicated WordPress plugins such as 404Page ou SeedProd.

A redirect prevents your SEO from being penalized.

If you do not redirect the pages or articles that need it, Your visitors will encounter broken links. (broken links, in English). 

As you just saw, these are bad for your visitors. When they click on them, they will encounter a 404 error. 

This is just as problematic for search engine robots (bots), which will no longer be able to explore your site properly (in SEO jargon, this is called crawling).

If Google's robots, the most used search engine in France, can no longer crawl your pages or articles normally, they will have more difficulty indexing them and Your positioning may be negatively impacted. (drop in position on the search results page).

Indeed, Google wants to show its visitors the most relevant resource corresponding to their search (the keyword they typed into the search bar).

You can imagine that he will favor a page with high value content, rather than a page containing a broken link. 

From an SEO perspective, redirects are very important because they allow you to: 

• retain the authority of the obsolete page by transferring it to the relocated page. Thanks to this, the positioning of the redirected page is preserved; 
• don't lose backlinks (Inbound links) from other websites to yours. In terms of SEO, backlinks are among the most important criteria Google evaluates when ranking a page. 

After these theoretical explanations, let's move on to the technical aspects. We'll now explain how to set up redirects on WordPress, with and without a plugin. 

How to create a redirect on WordPress using the Redirection plugin?

If you don't know how to code and don't want to handle sensitive files or code, the simplest and quickest way to create 301 redirects on WordPress is to use a plugin. This will also make it easier to avoid mistakes.

To do this, you have two options: 

1. The use of a dedicated extension almost exclusively for creating redirects. 
2. Using a general SEO plugin which offers a feature allowing the creation of redirections.

We will detail these two options in turn, starting with the case of the dedicated plugin. 

On the official WordPress directory, the two main redirection plugins are Redirection et 301 Redirects.

For the purposes of this article, we will focus on Redirection rather than 301 Redirects for several reasons: 

• This is the more popular of the two (2 million active installations versus 200,000 active installations for 301 Redirects); 
• all of its options are free ;
• It is frequently updated and has been very well maintained for many years; 
• It is easy to use, with an interface translated into French; 
• It has very good ratings.

So start by activating it on your WordPress administration interface by going to the Extensions > Add New menu.

A setup assistant This will allow you to make the initial basic adjustments. You can leave the default options to start (they can be changed at any time later).

Create a simple redirect

To begin, we will create a simple WordPress redirect. To do this, go to the Tools menu > Redirection. 

You will come across the extension's interface, with 7 settings tabs (Redirections, Groups, Site, Logs, 404, Import/export, Options, Support).

Click on the tab called "Redirections", and go to the "Add a new redirection" section.

Let's say you want to redirect an outdated URL A (e.g., https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/maintenance-wordpress/) to a URL B (e.g., https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/support-wordpress/). Here's how to do it:

1. In the "Source URL" fieldEnter the outdated URL: https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/maintenance-wordpress/
2. In the "Target URL" fieldEnter the destination URL for the redirect, that is, the new address of the web page you want your visitors to land on: https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/support-wordpress/

You can leave the "Query settings" option as is, and even create a group. This allows you to organize your redirects into specific folders. By default, the plugin sends them to the group called "Redirects". 

If you have hundreds of WordPress redirects to create, iIt might be interesting to organize them into groupsYou can tackle this later by going to the "Groups" tab.

When you're satisfied, finish by clicking the "Add a redirect" button (the plugin will add a 301 redirect by default):

You will find your 301 redirect under the different settings tabs:

Wondering how to remove a redirect, for example, if you acted too quickly or by mistake? Hover over the one you want in the list, then click "Remove." If you simply want to disable it temporarily, click "Disable."

Create an advanced redirect

If you wish to go further, it is possible to configure advanced settings before creating a redirection on WordPress.

To do this, click on the gear icon next to the "Add a redirect" button.

New options will appear, in the form of fields: 

• the "Correspondent" field allows you to choose whether you want to redirect the URL only, or the URL and another element (URL and connection status, URL and cookies, URL and IPs etc); 
• the "When it matches" field This allows you to choose which page you want to redirect the visitor to, and especially the type of redirect to implement (301, 302, 303, 304, 307, 308). Remember: in the vast majority of cases, you will only work with 301 redirects.

Other options of the Redirection plugin 

Beyond creating redirects for your WordPress site or blog, the Redirection plugin offers you other additional options within its various tabs: 

• "Groups" allows you to segment and list your redirects; 
• "Site" This allows you to redirect your entire site to a new domain name. You can also create a site alias, migrate permalinks, configure canonical settings, or add HTTP headers.
  As you've probably guessed, this section is best suited for experienced technicians. Don't touch anything if you're not sure what you're doing! Furthermore, as a warning, Redirection specifies that "the options on this page can cause problems if used incorrectly." A word to the wise… 
• "Newspapers" tells you which browsers and IP addresses have accessed your redirected content; 
• 404 lists your 404 errors and allows you to redirect the affected pages; 
• "Import/export" This allows you to import and export your redirects in various file formats (CSV, .htaccess, or JSON). For example, you can use them on a website hosted on another server.

• “Options” It offers a range of options for fine-tuning certain settings. This is also where you'll find a handy button should you ever wish to remove the extension. Clicking the red "Delete" button will erase all data associated with the plugin (database tables, logs, etc.).
• “Support” indicates the operating status of the extension. 

We've finished presenting one method for using the Redirection extension. Let's move on to the second option for creating a redirect on WordPress: using a general-purpose SEO plugin. 

How to create a redirect using a general SEO plugin?

If you are already using a plugin for Optimize the SEO of your WordPress siteThere is a good chance that it will offer a feature allowing the implementation of 301 redirects. 

This is the case for the most famous of them, but be careful, there is still a subtlety to know. 

The option to add a redirect is not always offered in the free version of the extension (which justifies using an extension as a redirect, if you do not want to spend a single cent).

For example, Yoast SEOThe most famous of these (5 million active installations) only allows the creation and management of redirects in its premium version. Just like SEOPress. 

If you are looking for a free solution, we recommend using the plugin. Rank Math or the plugin All in One SEO. 
For the purposes of this article, We are going to show you the method using Rank Math, a plugin that is both very feature-rich and easy to use.

Once you have activated it, go to Rank Math > Dashboard. Activate the module called "Redirections":

Next, go to the Rank Math plugin menu > Redirections to configure it. Click "Add". Then enter:

• the URL to redirect (source URLs field); 
• the destination URL;
• the type of redirection (e.g., 301 redirection); 
• the redirection status (enabled or disabled).

You now know how to create and configure a redirect on WordPress using a plugin. In the rest of this article, we'll explain how to do it manually, without using a redirect plugin. 

How to create a WordPress redirect without a plugin?

The big advantage of using an extension is that you can perform all your redirects without leaving the WordPress dashboard.

You have everything at your fingertips and don't need to juggle between different windows. This is the solution we recommend first and foremost.

However, there are other ways to add a redirect manually, without using plugins. We primarily recommend these methods for more experienced WordPress users. 

Create a redirect on WordPress with cPanel 

First method available to you: the administration interface provided by your hosting providerOne of the most famous is called cPanel. We will therefore focus on it in the following lines. 

Once logged into your cPanel, in the section called "Domains", click on the "Redirections" link:

cPanel primarily allows you to redirect the domain name pointing to your hosting (for all your websites). This is very useful, for example, when migrating to a new domain name.

To achieve this, you must: 

• Select a redirection type : Permanent (301) or Temporary (302); 
• Choose the domain or subdomain that you wish to redirect; 
• fill in the field containing the slash if you simply want to redirect a single page from your domain name. For example, if you want to redirect the page https://www.maintenance-wp.fr/creation-sites-wordpress/, select the domain maintenancewp.fr and enter creation-sites-wordpress after the slash;
• enter the destination domain name of the redirection (Redirects to field); 
• Choose whether you want to redirect with or without www ; 
• decide if you want to create a generic redirectIf you check this box, all files in a directory will be redirected to the same filename as the redirected directory.

Finish by clicking the "Add" button. As you can see, the process is a little less intuitive than with an extension. Furthermore, you can only choose two types of redirects (301 and 302) to configure. 

Create a redirect using the .htaccess file

Let's now move on to manual option #2: creating a new redirect on WordPress using the .htaccess file. 

This file is a text file used by Apache web servers. It's possible to add directives to it (using code) to configure .htaccess redirects without using an extension.

To learn how to create and modify a .htaccess file, Consult our dedicated guide on the subject.You will discover around ten guidelines to help you strengthen the security of your site, or to improve the loading speed of your pages.

Before manipulating it, be sure to back up your site or blog using a dedicated extension such as UpdraftPlus, or a tool like WP Umbrella.

The slightest syntax error in the code Adding anything to your .htaccess file will crash your WordPress site. So it's best to be proactive and protect yourself.

Once you have opened your .htaccess file, add the following line of code to it (below the directives already present in your current file):

# Rediriger une page vers une autre
Redirect 301 /mapage.html https://www.votresite.fr/nouvellepage.html

Replace mypage.html with the name of the page you want to redirect and https://www.yoursite.fr/newpage.html with the URL you want your visitors to be redirected to.

If you wish to redirect to a new domain name, enter the following code:

# Rediriger un nom de domaine vers un autre
Redirect 301 / https://nouveausite.fr/

Replace the URL https://nouveausite.fr/ with the one of your choice.

Summary

Creating and managing redirects on WordPress is essential for improve your users' experience and preserve your organic search engine rankings from your website/blog. 

This operation will be necessary each time a URL becomes obsolete, for example when content is deleted or when a domain name is changed. 

Throughout these lines, you have discovered that it is possible to add a 301 redirect: 

• thanks to a dedicated plugin like Redirection, or with a general SEO plugin like Rank Math; 
• using cPanel ; 
• via a directive added to your .htaccess file. 

Have you read all our advice and would like support in setting up redirects on your site, or even a redirection plan? 

Contact the WP Maintenance team to benefit from a tailor-made solution that meets your needs with speed, professionalism and efficiency.