What is a 301 Redirect?!

A 301 Redirect is the best Search Engine Friendly way to redirect pages or whole websites to another URL. 301 Redirects aren’t hard to do at all, and best of all they will keep your Search Engine pagerank. If you to change file names or move pages, this is the safest option.

What’s the “301″ all about?!

The code “301″ tells the Search Engines and the Browser the page or site has “moved permanently”.

How do I create a 301 Redirect?

301 Redirect using .htaccess

1. Create a file called “.htaccess” in the root directory of your website (where your index page is).
2. Open the .htaccess file using what ever text editor you use, I use Notepad.
3. Add line into the .htaccess file and upload it to your server again:

Redirect 301 /old.html http://www.dave-white.co.uk/new.html

This would redirect http://www.dave-white.co.uk/old.html to http://www.dave-white.co.uk/new.html. Do not put the http://www.dave-white.co.uk in the first part of the redirect.

I will write more about this another time, so check back soon.

Check to see if your Redirect is Search Engine Friendly

Use this tool to check you have implemented your 301 Redirect correctly.