Redirecting a website URL: A Comprehensive Guide

 Today we live in a world where Internet has become an inseparable part of our day-to-day lives and we end up visiting numerous websites for the purpose of gathering information or for providing us entertainment as well as for commercial purposes like buying and selling of products/ services. It is important for these websites to be hosted on the server of a website hosting company in order to be accessible over the Internet. These web hosting companies which are called web hosts provide all the necessary services as well as server space and make available the technology that is needed to make these websites accessible. Hosting is of many types such as shared, dedicated, VPS, Cloud, reseller, WordPress. There are various hosting plans based on the operating system, such as Windows or Linux. When we refer to “Windows Hosting” it indicates a type of hosting that is meant for the Windows operating system. Similarly, the terms “Top Cloud Hosting Company” or even “Best Web Hosting Company”, all refer to web hosting companies, with the former offering cloud hosting services and the latter offering the best quality of web hosting in general.

In the context of websites, it is imperative to mention the acronym, URL. Uniform Resource Locator or the URL of a website indicates the location of a particular website, web page or file on the Internet. URLs are made of multiple parts. This variation in it structure, impacts in many ways different websites’ security aspects as well as their Search Engine Optimization (SEO). URLs are way more complex than these are assumed to be in general. Any website URL will consist of three parts, which are, the protocol- HTTP or HTTPS; the domain name (including the TLD) and the path that directs the browser to a specific page on the website. Each individual web page as well as file on a website has its own URL.

In the context of URLs another term that one comes across frequently is “URL Redirect” which is also referred to as “URL Forwarding”. As is evident from the name itself, it redirects one’s domain’s visitors to a different URL. It means, it redirects one’s old URL to a new page. One’s domain name can be forwarded to any web page or website that can be accessed online. When anyone either types the original URL or clicks on it, he will be taken to that page for which the redirect has been set. This makes sure that visitors do not get a 404 error as well as prevents them from losing any important links that they might have created for that page, which is a crucial factor to pay attention to for search engine optimization (SEO). This also maintains the quality of user experience of those visitors who click on one of those links. This redirect can be implemented at the domain level or even page-by-page. The knowledge related to setting up a website URL redirect, is an important skill for those that own and run a website.

There are three main types of website URL redirects which will be mentioned here, in no particular order. Usually most website owners use the first one of these three. The first one is a 301 redirect. This refers to a permanent redirect and is the most frequently used redirect. Not only that, it is very powerful as well. This occurs on both levels, the browser as well as the server level. This type of redirect can be recognized as well as indexed by search engines. This makes it an ideal option for redirecting website URL in the context of SEO. Hence, it is recommendable in most cases to use a 301 redirect.

The next type of redirect is termed as a 302 redirect. It is a temporary redirect. It is advisable to use this kind of redirect only in that scenario when one intends to resume using the old URL at some time in the future.  An example of such a situation can be if a website owner is redesigning and recreating his site and wants to direct his website visitors to a different domain for the time being until that redesigned site is ready. This type of redirect is not used very frequently. Before one decides to opt for a 302 redirect, it is better to consider if what one really needs is a 301 direct and then take an informed decision.

Another type of redirect is meta refresh. In this case a website visitor usually gets a message that informs him that he is being redirected and in case that doesn’t happen within a certain time frame then he needs to click on a particular link. A meta refresh redirects the browser to a new page without updating the server. In this type of redirect one can clarify the amount of time that the redirect to a new page should take. This can be done when setting up a meta refresh. At times search engines might interpret a meta refresh redirect as a 301 redirect. This usually happens if the amount of time that has been allotted is as less as zero to one second. Meta refresh can lead to a bad user experience if it makes the website visitor wait to access the web page that he is seeking.

A website redirect comes in handy in many different situations. Some of these are, when one wants to redirect duplicate content to the original web page, redirect a subdirectory to a certain page on one’s website, redirect multiple domains to a single domain, redirect one’s old domain to a new one as well as when one wants to redirect an old URL to a new URL. All in all, a website URL redirect is a very useful technique that can help website owners in many ways when the need for it arises.

Source: https://htswebhosting.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/redirecting-a-website-url-a-comprehensive-guide/