Beginners guide to creating redirects in WordPress

What do you know about redirects? Why do you need them on your website? We are going to highlight this topic for you.

What is a redirect in WordPress website?

Redirect is the way WordPress work to show site visitors that the page they are looking for is moved. What are the most common situations for using redirects?

1. When you are going to remove page/post from your website but don’t want to leave 404 not found errors on the website. To avoid that you can redirect your old page or post to a new location.

2. The other common reason for redirect creation is the permalinks change. You can change your page link and it will not be accessible from the old link. This old link could be redirected to the new link.

In case you leave your pages as they are you will get 404 not found errors. Which is bad for your website’s SEO and it will hurt search engine rankings. You will agree that it influences your website performance badly.

How to create redirects?

You may already thought hard about the redirection ways in WordPress. Just read further. We are going to show you how to do that.

1. The best way is additional plugin installation. It doesn’t require code knowledge. This way is a great choice for beginners.

   All you need to do is to install a plugin. To do that navigate to Plugins > Add New section in your WordPress backend. Enter redirect to the search field. You can install and activate any plugin you see there. We will show you how to work with the most popular redirection plugins.

   • The first plugin is called Redirection. In order to add redirection using that plugin open Tools > Redirection page in your backend. Locate Add New Redirection section. You can enter your source URL there and replace it with a new link.

     That is a great tool to search for 404 errors on your website. It makes site development easier. You can redirect those pages to existing URLs and avoid SEO troubles on your website.

   • Page Links To is a the other good tool to redirect pages on the website. After the plugin activation, you will see a meta box added on your post edit screen. Just locate that section and enter your new page address.

   • Simple 301 Redirects is the third plugin we are going to talk about today.

     There are different redirection types. This plugin works with 301 redirects. It allows you to redirect page to a new address if it’s moved.

     Open Settings > 301 Redirection page after plugin installation and activation. Open plugin page and start adding your redirects.

2. Note! Redirects could slow down your website. To make your redirects faster you need to modify your .htaccess file.

   Remember, file editing could affect your website. We always recommend that you backup the file prior making changes into it. One error in this file and your website is down.

   To access file connect to your server using FTP or visit file manager in your hosting cPanel. Download the file to your computer and open it in any code editor.

   Here is an example of the code you can use for redirection

   RewriteEngine On
   Redirect 301 /a-very-old-post/ http://yoursite.com/a-very-new-post/

   Add that piece of the code at the end of the file and set the links you wish to redirect.

That is it. You know how to work with redirects now. Hope your website visitors will not meet 404 pages anymore. More hacks are coming soon.

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