Setting up WordPress redirects – how it works

[mdsojolh444]

A WordPress website is never "finished". Over the years, you continually adapt it, improve it, optimize it, and implement new ideas. This also means that at some point you will have to set up redirects.

In this article we will show you how this works, with and without a WordPress plugin, and why WordPress redirects are so important.

What are redirects?
Redirects are used by website owners to redirect to a different URL when someone clicks on a link. This may be necessary, for example, if you move one of your websites to a new domain or rename a subpage, blog article or landing page.

With a redirect, you offer your visitors the chance to access your current content even via an outdated link.

Why should you set up redirects?
It can make sense to set up a WordPress redirect for a variety of reasons: Have you renamed a post on your blog? Or changed your entire domain? A redirect is essential in both cases.

It helps you redirect a URL to another URL and bring your website visitors bc data singapore to their destination, i.e. to your content. Even if, for example, they clicked on a link in a newsletter that you sent before the change.

Do you want to make WordPress faster? The best tips for more performance.
Learn more
The following points may cause you to need to set up redirects:

You revise the structure of your website
Your WordPress website should move to a new domain
You delete one of your pages because you no longer need it
You change parts of the URL or the permalink of a page or post
You merge several WordPress projects into one
If you set up your redirects cleverly, this can have a very positive effect on the user experience and search engine optimization of your websites: Your page rank improves and you forward signals such as interaction data and your URL structure to the target URL. The search engine uses this, among other things, to assess whether search results are relevant.

What happens if you don't set up a redirect?
Without redirects, users end up on error pages or receive error messages. This can lead to dissatisfaction and a bad experience, but also to declining rankings on Google and other search engines.

In the end, visitors leave your website and do not return because of their negative experience. In the worst case, this will have a negative impact on your business if, for example, you run an online store with WooCommerce .

If you don't set up a redirect after renaming a page, anyone who clicks on the outdated URL will see a 404 error page. To avoid this, you should always set up a redirect. This is also important from a usability perspective.

Also, keep in mind that you can only pass on your link juice (the distribution of backlinks within your website and their strength) if you use a redirect.