When You Need a Redirect
Four situations that call for one, and two traps worth knowing about.
What It Is
A redirect is a standing instruction attached to an address: anyone who asks for this should be sent there instead.
It is not a link and not a setting on a page. It belongs to the site, and it keeps working after the original page is long gone — which is exactly why it is useful.
Why It Matters
Four situations genuinely call for one.
You renamed a page. Its address changed, so everything pointing at the old one is now broken. This is the most common case and the easiest to forget, because your own site's links get updated and other people's do not.
You deleted a page. Something that was there is not. If anything ever linked to it, those visitors deserve better than a 404.
You merged two pages. One address survives; the other should point at it.
You moved from another website. Addresses that worked on the old site should keep working, so visitors and search engines land on the equivalent new page rather than on nothing.
How It Works
Two traps are worth knowing about.
Chains. Redirecting A to B, then later B to C, means a visitor arriving at A takes two hops. It works, but each hop is slower and the chain is fragile. When you redirect B, check whether anything already redirects to B and repoint it directly.
Loops. If A points to B and B points to A, a browser gives up and shows an error. This happens by accident when two pages are merged in both directions over time. If an address stops working entirely after you add a redirect, a loop is the first thing to check.
Examples
Renaming /services to /what-we-do
Redirect permanently. Every existing link, bookmark and search result keeps working.
Retiring a campaign landing page
Redirect permanently to the nearest equivalent page, not to the homepage, if one exists.
A page down for a week while you rewrite it
Temporary redirect. You want the old address to keep its standing because it is coming back.
A page that never existed
Not a redirect. Either build the page or fix the link pointing at it — the link map will show you which.
Warning: A redirect is not a fix for a broken link on your own site. If one of your pages links somewhere wrong, correct the link. Redirects are for addresses you no longer control the links to.
