Automatic Redirect

[VillasDiani]

Good morning to all! Is it normal that I change link and it automatically redirect to the new one? Our links are too long and all have Diani Beach in it what we have done a long time ago as we though it is a good move Now I know it is bed so I just opened post and change the permalink and then I open it in new window and instead of Not Found it opens the new link. Can I be doing this?

[NitinRGoyal]

It is perfectly normal to redirect URLs automatically. You just need to keep basics of SEO in account. Danny Dover, in his book SEO Secrets, wrote "A pyramid structure for a website allows the most possible link juice to get to all the website’s pages with the fewest number of links."

One issue which generally comes is that the old pages are properly redirected making 2 pages available to search engines, thus eroding value or URLs.

[VillasDiani]

Hi Nitin, Thank you very very much for your reply. I understand that to redirect links is ok but how is it possible??? What is the issues around how to redirect with 301 and how comes I do not need to do this and it does on its own?? I do not have such plugin which makes automatic redirect on my theme http://villasdiani.com Example: I have created a post a long time ago which had quite long url.. Now, I did not like it, so I just change the link and instead of being not found it is found under the new link with no problem. How is this possible? The reason why I am asking is that I am afraid I will now change a number of links which are too long and as I do not know what is helping me to do the automatic redirect, perhaps one day I remove it and then I will end up with 300 not found links:-(

[NitinRGoyal]

There are many ways to do it - I recommend you to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection#Techniques

Out of the given methods Apache mod rewrite is best as it gives proper information to search engines that the page is permanently redirected. Apart from this you can use 'noindex' on old URL so that search engines do not index it.

[VillasDiani]

I am sorry, and appreciate your time to explain, but I am not getting it:-( I still do not know the answer to my question how is it possible that the links I change are automatically redirect to the new links.

[NitinRGoyal]

Can you confirm on which platform your site is made ? PHP / Drupal / ASP.net or anything else.

[VillasDiani]

Hi Nitin, it's wordpress

[NitinRGoyal]

Then you must be having a plugin in it which handles redirection automatically. something like this one http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/.

It is highly recommended you have this kind of plugin so that when you change URL, it automatically makes a redirect entry.

In case you do not want to use it then you will need to make entries in Apache.

Hope this makes sense.

[VillasDiani]

Hi Nitin, thank you very much for the advice! I have found that is doing plugin called Broken Link Checker. Thank you very much for your patient, time and great help.