A 301 redirect is a permanent forwarding instruction: when someone — or a search engine — requests the old URL, they are automatically sent to the new one. It is the correct technical tool whenever a page moves to a new address, a domain changes, or old URLs need to be retired cleanly.
When to Use a 301 Redirect
| Situation | Use a redirect? |
|---|---|
| A page changes its URL slug | Yes — always |
| A site moves to a new domain | Yes — for the entire old domain |
| A page is merged into another page | Yes — redirect the merged page to the surviving one |
| A page is permanently deleted (no replacement) | No redirect — return 410 (gone) or 404 |
| Temporary maintenance or A/B testing | Use 302 (temporary redirect) |
| Forcing HTTP to redirect to HTTPS | Yes — redirect all HTTP to HTTPS |
The SEO Consequence of Missing a Redirect
When you change a URL without a redirect, the old URL becomes a 404. Any links from other sites pointing to the old URL now go nowhere — that incoming link equity is wasted. Any rankings the old page had start to transfer to the new URL only after search engines discover and index it, which takes time. Adding a redirect on the day you change the URL prevents this interruption.
How to Add a Redirect
For Apache web servers (the most common hosting type, including most shared hosting and many VPS setups), 301 redirects go in the .htaccess file in the site's root folder.
Use the .htaccess Generator to create the correct redirect rules, then add them to your .htaccess file.
A single-page redirect looks like: `` Redirect 301 /old-page-slug https://yourdomain.com/new-page-slug ``
A domain-wide redirect (old domain to new domain): `` RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] ``
After Adding Redirects
- Test each redirect by opening the old URL in a browser and confirming it lands on the new URL.
- Submit the new URL's sitemap to Google Search Console so the new URL is crawled quickly.
- Update internal links pointing to the old URL — redirects for internal links add an unnecessary hop.
For forcing HTTPS specifically, see how to force HTTPS on your website.
Redirect Chains
A redirect chain is when URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C. Each hop adds a small delay and the SEO signal dilutes slightly at each step. After any round of URL changes, check for chains and replace them with direct redirects from the original URL to the final destination. In your htaccess or site configuration, a chain A → B → C should become A → C and B → C. For generating clean htaccess rules for redirects and HTTPS, use .htaccess Generator. For the HTTPS redirect specifically, see how to force HTTPS on your website.
