301 redirects are the most important and clean for an SEO approach that lets you re-route traffic of your site to a new destination for a number of reasons in a number of helpful ways. But, they’re confusing to many casual or beginner Wordpress users.

And, if you are here, you apparently came to know how it works. In case I am right, you are at the very right place. In this article, I am going to dig into How to Add 301 Redirects to WordPress.

So, Let’s start from the very beginning to help you out completely.

What Does 301 Redirect Do?

In simple words, 301 redirects are a way for you to automatically send the visitors who are landing on Page 1 directly to Page 2. It is essential in terms of rerouting traffic automatically if you ever need to move a page or pages. Without getting too much techy, these numbers essentially refer to regardless or not the page has been moved permanently or temporary.

And the great thing is, You can redirect more than a single page. You can redirect many multiple pages to one new page or automatically redirect all pages by setting up definite criteria to their respective new version or page or link or redirected destination.

When a WordPress user needs 301 Redirects?

Now, below here, I want to be more particular and give you some points as in when would you, a WordPress user will need a 301 Redirect to your WordPress site.

• To change a single post URL though WordPress automatically redirects traffic landing to old URLs to new ones, I still recommend being sure of it by setting up 301 redirects manually, as the process doesn’t always work.

• You will need it while changing a permalink or slug structure. 301 redirect will redirect URLs using your old permalinks or slug structure to your new one.

• Some SEO experts strongly suggest merging many small posts into one beast post. And, you will seemingly need 301 redirect to redirect everyone from all small post to the big one.

• Changing your domain name. If you completely change your domain name, it’s mandatory to use 301 redirect to redirect your traffic from your old domain to a new one, for not losing your customers and visitors all at once.

• If you add SSL certificate to your WordPress site, you need to make sure that you add 301 redirect to send each and every unsecured visitor and traffic to the SSL certified secured version of your website.

How to Add 301 Redirect to WordPress?

As per the SEO requirements, you can use a freemium plugin known as Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect Wordpress Plugin. Redirect is possible by manually using .htaccess for everything, but this WordPress makes it easier to apply it with total ease.

The interesting part is this plugin also gives the functionality of finding duplicated content or post on your website. Duplication is hated by search engines and thus, this can help you boost up your SEO in no time.

Coming back to 301 Redirect, you can easily redirect any post or slug without even leaving your Dashboard. Also, this plugin makes it easy to manage the redirected links and slugs.

To get started, once you’ve installed the Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect WordPress plugin, you can simply go to Dashboard » Trash Duplicates » 301 Redirects, where it displays all the redirected links/posts/pages.

Example:

To redirect a single post or page to other single post or page, xyz.com/old-page to xyz.com/new-page,

• All you need to do is get the Page/Post title and URL of each.
• Now go to the bottom of the page where you will get 3 space.
• Enter the Post/Page title in the first,
• Source URL i.e. redirecting link in the second,
• and the Target URL i.e. the link where you want to Redirect it.

Once done, hit ‘Save’ and believe me, It’s done!

The same process is applicable to Redirect a whole Category or slug to a new slug structure. Just enter the source and targeted URL and it will start redirecting the traffic automatically, as simple as that.

Wrapping Things Up

So this is it about How to Add 301 Redirects to WordPress in the simple and easiest way.

Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect WordPress plugin give the 2 best functionality for SEO practices that can boost your website’s organic search and even keep redirecting your returning visitors to new links.

Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect WordPress plugin it is a great free plugin, which is also available in PRO version with more features and services and can be managed directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Else, you can use .htaccess to manually 301 redirect everything or just a part of your WordPress site.

If you have any further questions about How to Add 301 Redirects to WordPress, Let us know in the comments and we’ll surely help out!