Redirect 301 – best practice and logic ?
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Hello,
I’m starting a new discussion because my previous discussion was closed.
The main discussion is here : https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/redirect-301-best-practice-and-logic/ and I’m asking about the best way to redirect pages from an old to a new website.
Here is the original question :
I’m building a new website on the staging environnement of WordPress.com. When ready, I plan to replace the old website with this staging version and also change the domain name.
In order to keep the SEO ranking, I plan to do many 301 redirections.
Regarding the redirection, I have some questions :
- What would be the best way to redirect on WordPress.com ? Plugin ? In house solution ? htaccess ? The domain name and the urls will be different so I will need to redirect (manually maybe) each old page to its new one. There are multiple solutions and I don’t know what to choose ?
- When replacing the old website with the new one, do I still have access to the old somehow ? Do I need to make a list of the old url’s (for the redirect) before swapping the website ?
It’s crucial that my ranking stays the same after updating my website so I’m trying to find the best solution for setting up redirections.
Thank you for your help and ideas !
Quentin
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And here is the response from @supernovia :
Hey there, I’m not a 301 expert but I can share this much:
The domain name and the urls will be different so I will need to redirect (manually maybe) each old page to its new one. There are multiple solutions and I don’t know what to choose ?
Will you be able to connect the old domain to the new one? If so, we’ll automatically redirect that with 301, so long as you make the new name primary. And we’ll handle what individual URL redirects we can too.
You mentioned the urls will be different, but if you’re keeping the same page/post names (importing content is a great way to go about that), the system will usually be able to redirect those for you, too, so long as you connect both domains and have the new one set to Primary. If you need to redirect beyond the automated stuff, there are plugins you can use.
When replacing the old website with the new one, do I still have access to the old somehow ? Do I need to make a list of the old url’s (for the redirect) before swapping the website ?
Where is the old one right now? I wasn’t able to spot it on this account. I’d recommend keeping the old site accessible til the new one is perfect, at least. After that is there anything you’d need from it?
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Here is my answer :
Hello,
Thank you for your answer and sorry for the very late reply. I wasn’t notified :S
Will you be able to connect the old domain to the new one?
What do you mean ? I guess the old domain will be active for some time but visitors will never see it because they will be redirected to the new domain name.
Where is the old one right now? I wasn’t able to spot it on this account.
This is my private account and I’m building the new one on the client account.
I’d recommend keeping the old site accessible til the new one is perfect, at least.
So if I push the staging site to production, the old website will just disconnect or will the new one completely override the old one ? I’m not familiar with wordpress.com so I want to make sure I don’t loose the old website when the staging new one is ready. Will the old website still be accessible via the dashboard afterwards ?
In any case, thank you very much for you help and, again, sorry for the delay.
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