301 redirect

The importance of a 301 redirect to your search engine rankings

The 301 redirect is mainly used to deal with 'canonicalization' issues, it works by permanently redirecting one URL to another.

For example, take my website:

• http://www.webechodesigns.com
• http://webechodesigns.com
• http://www.webechodesigns.com/index.htm
• http://webechodesigns.com/index.htm

Generally, most people would think of these URL's as the same, they do, after all, bring you to the same page if you type them into the address bar of your browser.

However, they are technically four different URL's and could point to four different pages, Search Engines use 'canonicalization' to 'decide' which is the best URL to send the searcher to.

So how does this effect my Search Engine Rankings?

If, for example, you have 10 links to your website, and 5 use the url of www.webechodesigns.com, whilst the other 5 point to webechodesigns.com: You would assume that you have 10 links all pointing to your website and the 'points' for these votes would all count toward your Search Engine Rankings, seems reasonable but, as the Search Engines regard these as two different webpages, the 'points' are in fact split between the two 'sites', essentially, receiving half the 'score' each.

By using a 301 permanent redirect to make all permutations of webechodesigns.com point to exactly the same page, you redirect all those 'points' to the same place.

Here's how it works

Note: This method of permanent redirection only works on Servers running Apache.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webechodesigns\.com$ [NC]

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

It's very simple:

the first line

RewriteEngine On

turns the ReWrite Engine on, this enables the server to literally re-write the URL.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webechodesigns\.com$ [NC]

This line declares a condition relating to anything that includes the term webechodesigns.com

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

This final line states that any URL that satisfies the condition is redirected to the variable declared in this last declaration i.e. http://www.webechodesigns.com/

What do I do with it?

This code is placed in a file called .htaccess, the simplest way is to paste the code into Notepad, alter the url's to match those of your own website then save it into your website folder.

Note: When saving in Notepad, Notepad will 'want' to add .txt as the suffix of the file, however, by choosing "save as type: All Files", you will be able to save it as .htaccess.

Once this file is saved, you then upload it to your servers root folder.

Testing your redirect

The simplest way to test if your .htaccess, containing the 'permanent redirect', file is working correctly is to open your browser and type in "webechodesigns.com" (without the quotes).

(which would normally read "http://webechodesigns.com" in your browsers address bar)

the homepage of your website should load and the address bar should now read "http://www.webechodesigns.com".

That's it, your done!

Of course, the uses of permanent redirects don't end there:

If, while restructuring your website, you need to change the names of certain pages, you can use the 301 redirect to make the old URL point to the new one.

i.e. http://webechodesigns.com/activities.htm and http://www.webechodesigns/attractions.htm could now both point to http://www.webechodesigns/things-to-do.htm

This means that any links that were pointing to /activities.htm and /attractions.htm will now redirect to /things-to-do.htm and your new page benefits from those inbound links.

For more information on using your .htaccess file, this website provides a fairly simple and straightforward way to use the most common (and useful) .htaccess code - javascript.com

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