How to create 301 redirects

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An essential task to complete when transferring your site or pages to a new URL

Anytime you transfer pages to a new URL, it’s imperative that you let Google know where to find these new pages. You do this with 301 redirects. These instructions tell Google that those pages have been permanently moved, and it will respond by updating it’s index. Here’s how to do that.

Step 1 – Compile a list of existing pages that will be moved

The first thing you need to do is get a list of pages that Google has in their index. To do that, search on Google “site: your url”.
As an example, see the image below of the query we ran for our Danville Personal Injury Attorney client.

How to do a 301 redirect

Step 2 – Create your 301 redirects

Log in to your ftp file manager provided to you by your web host
Navigate to the root directory and find your .htaccess file (if this is not available you can create a new one just make sure you save it with no extension as .htaccess)
Open your .htaccess file and make a new line
- Type redirect 301 and copy and paste one of the original URL’s from your Google “site:” query removing everything up until the /
- Make a space and then put the entire page URL that you want to redirect it to including the http
Example:
redirect 301 /practiceareas.php http://www.tomsokatlaw.com/index.php

Step 3 – Repeat for each redirect you’re creating

*Remember to put each redirect on a new line

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Kat

Top Kat at Kat & Mouse Co.

Kathy (aka Kat) is one of the internet's original Digital Divas and freely shares her expertise in the fields of web design, SEO, Local SEO, social media marketing, content development, PPC, and conversion optimization to help businesses succeed online. Sadly, she's allergic to cats.