Setting Up a Redirect
Keep existing links working after a page is renamed or removed.
When an address on your site stops working, the links pointing at it do not stop existing. They are in other people's bookmarks, in emails you sent, in search results, on other websites.
A redirect catches those visitors and sends them where the content went.
Before You Begin
- The old address, as a path on your site
- Somewhere sensible to send it
Steps
Open Redirects for the site
Redirects is on the site's card on My Sites, and in the site's settings. It lists whatever redirects already exist and has a form to add another.
Enter the address to redirect from
From is a path on this site, not a full web address — /old-about rather than https://yoursite.com/old-about.
You can type it freely or pick from your existing pages, which is useful when you are about to remove one.
Enter where it should go
To takes either a path on the same site, like /about-us, or a complete address somewhere else if the content has moved off your site entirely.
Send people somewhere genuinely equivalent. A visitor who clicked a link about one specific thing and lands on your homepage has been given a puzzle instead of an answer — if there is a closely matching page, use it; if there genuinely is not, your homepage is the honest fallback.
Choose permanent or temporary
Permanent (301) says the move is settled. Search engines transfer the old address's standing to the new one and update their records. This is what you want almost every time.
Temporary (302) says the original will be back. Search engines keep the old address and do not transfer anything. Use it for genuinely temporary situations — a page down for maintenance, a seasonal page pointed elsewhere out of season.
Add it, then test it
Add redirect saves it. Open the old address in a browser and confirm you end up at the new one.
Test the real address rather than assuming. A typo in the From path produces a redirect that simply never fires, and nothing will tell you.
Result
Anyone arriving at the old address lands on the new one, and search engines are told which kind of move it was.
