Just what is a 301 Redirect?

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what to do when you move, delete, or want to redirect incoming web traffic from an 'old' web page to a 'new' web page. There is also some confusion as to how to handle the complete move or redirection from one web domain to another web domain. According to Google, "If you need to change the URL of a page as it is shown in search engine results, we recommended that you use a server-side 301 redirect instead."

How to Set Up a 301 Redirect

Depending on your web environment, there are several methods to set up a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page or web domain.

.htaccess 301 Redirection

The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website. In this example, we are redirecting incoming web traffic from an old domain to a new domain.

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Replace the www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name. The .htaccess file is the most common method used for 301 web site redirection.

PHP 301 Redirection

You would place this code in a file at the old location.

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

Replace the www.www.new-url.com in the above code with your actual domain name.Of course with any code, you will want to test this.

IIS 301 Redirection

• In Internet Services Manager, you need to right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
• Select the radio button titled "a redirection to a URL".
• Enter the redirection web page
• Check "The exact URL entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
• Click on 'Apply'

That is all there is to it.

There are other methods in addition to set up a 301 redirection which include coding for ASP, ASP.NET, Java, CGI, Cold Fusion and Ruby on Rails. The above are the most common that I've encountered. A good source for information on these configurations can be found at webconfs.com.

When set up correctly, a 301 redirect will preserve your search engine rankings when it is necessary to move files around or switch, or consolidate, domain names.