301 Redirect

Why It's Used:

A 301 permanent redirect is used to direct search engine crawlers and visitors to the new location of a page or entire site. Typically, this redirect is used when file names are changed during re-development of a web site's structure. It may also be used if an established web site changes its domain name.

Without implementing redirects, when a web page's file name is changed, users who click on links to the old page URL will get an "Error 404 - File not found." Furthermore, search engine robots will think the page has been deleted and will eventually drop any rankings associated with that particular page. The 301 redirect takes care of both issues.

How It's Used:

The 301 redirect is implemented by making changes to information on the web server. The specific code/commands depends on the hosting platform (ie. Windows or Linux) and the language your web pages have been created in (ie. ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, etc). Visit the FreshPromo Knowledge Center for complete 301 redirect instructions.