How do I do a 301 Redirect in Wordpress

[SteveSweat]

I have several pages that are showing up as "duplicate" on my Wordpress based site based upon the structure of site.  I was wondering how to do a 301 redirect for these pages

[NaescentAdam]

I would do it with a .htaccess file. If your hosting company has cPanel (or any other good website management software) you can do this with a gui and type the old link and the link in to your browser and hit save, or you can do it manually by creating (or editing) the .htaccess file in the root of your directory. Super fast and secure way of doing it, although you do need to be running apache (et al) not IIS.

This site has some good info on it

http://www.josiahcole.com/2007/07/11/almost-perfect-htaccess-file-for-wordpress-blogs/

As with all things there are a few ways of doing it. This seems to cover most of the exploits that .htaccess files are good at blocking including the 301 redirects.

Bear in mind that .htaccess 301s using CONDITIONS are regex and certain rules apply such as escaping characters.

so this doesnt need escaping and is simple

#redirect old to new
Redirect 301 /old.php http://www.yourdomain.com/new.php

but this does, see the . at the end of digg.com is digg.com

#block referring domains
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} digg.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F]

Once you have your 301s in place check the header return to see if its working by using a simple service like this

http://www.checkmyheaders.com/index.php

Hope it works

Adam

[ContactOnline]

Hi Steven,

I agree with Adam that editing the .htaccess file directly is the best way to do this, however in the interest of you not having that knowledge there are plenty of wordpress plugins that allow you to do 301 redirects either on the fly or a way that's easier to do.

Here is a link to a search on the wordpress site http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=301+redirect

My preference generally is to actually search for the plugins within the Wordpress Admin panel in the menu plugins, then go to add new and type in 301 redirect in the search.From there you'll be able to see a large list along with descriptions and reviews that will help you to narrow down what plugin may suit you.

It also makes the installation process easier as you don't have to do the whole download then upload stuff it just downloads directly to your Wordpress installs and you then just have to activate it and in some plugins cases change some settings.

Word of warning though doing 301s should be really thought through before you do them as it makes it permanent so just double check you have the right URLs before you commit them. A client of mine made a huge mistake that took a while to sort out.

Also something to look at and that's plugins like SEO Yoast as that can allow you to use canonical names, which could help with some types of duplicate pages and for some pages that show up in SEOmoz's campaign reports that you don't want or need showing up. I won't go into more detail as that's not what you were asking, but I figured it's related somewhat so point you in the right direction just in case

Hope that all helps.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Steven,

Alan's suggestion of installing the Wordpress SEO by Yoast plugin is right on target.

This plugin allows you to create a 301 redirect for any post and also to add the canonical link element if you prefer (only for single pages and posts).

With the plugin installed, to add a 301 redirect, just click the Advanced tab and scroll to the bottom. Enter the URL you wish to redirect the post or page to and click Update. Obviously, the plugin writes the .htaccess rule for you, but if you do want to edit the .htaccess file directly, the Yoast plugin also allows you to do this.

This plugin also includes a number of other features that allow you to deal with some of the technical shortcomings of Wordpress from an SEO point of view (duplicate content issues etc), so adds a lot of value.

Hope that helps,

Sha