How do 301 redirects affect SEO?

  • Unknown's avatar
    antoniaedwards · Member ·

    I’ve recently restructured some of my tags and categories to make the site easier to navigate. I also had some messy slugs which I’ve now tidied up and have redirected multiple pages of the old URLs (e.g. http://wordpress-site.com/tag/old-tag-name/page-6). Is a drop in traffic inevitable because of all these changes? Is it likely to be temporary or permanent?

  • Unknown's avatar
    okanagancreativedesigns · Member ·

    Hi @antoniaedwards,

    If the changes you made are meant to be permanent then the 301 redirect is appropriate to implement.

    The 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. Basically it sends search engines (and any visitors) who typed in your original URL or selected it from search engines, to your new URL.

    So to answer your question, the the 301 redirect is better for SEO if it is permanent. If you are looking for a temporary redirect – you would be looking more into a 302 temporary redirect.

    Hope that helped!

    Cheers!

  • Unknown's avatar
    antoniaedwards · Member ·

    Thanks @okanagancreativedesigns that’s helpful to know. I was also wondering whether I should expect a drop in traffic as a result and if so, will it come up again after a period of time? I agree the changes are necessary as I had some URLs that were leading to nowhere.

  • Unknown's avatar
    okanagancreativedesigns · Member ·

    Hi @antoniaedwards,

    It depends on the size of your website. If you have a large well-known website and begin to do a whole bunch of 301 redirects, then there is possibility in seeing a dip in traffic and page rank.

    But if you have a smaller website then you most likely won’t see that dip in traffic.

    This question is more SEO related and not so much WordPress.com.

    What I would suggest is heading over to Google and just checking out what articles they have about 301 redirects and how they effect your traffic or posting to their support forum :)

    https://support.google.com/

    Also, for future reference – if you have a self-hosted WordPress.ORG website and have further questions that relate more to WordPress, I would suggest heading over to the WordPress.ORG Support Forum.

    This is a public forum which provides support only for the sites hosted on WordPress.com.

    You can seek help for WordPress.org sites here: https://wordpress.org/support/
    Also – please know that you might need an account to post on self-hosted WordPress forums. You can create one here. https://login.wordpress.org/register

    You can read the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

    Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    antoniaedwards · Member ·

    I see! Thanks so much for the advice – that’s very helpful. I shall definitely head over to those forums.
    Cheers!

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