301 Redirect For SEO

The “301″ refers to what is called the HTTP status code. This status code is what is returned to your browser (or search engine) when a page is requested.

The most familiar status code for the average person that uses the Internet is the “404″ page not found code. This happens when a page that you have requested is not found at the address that you visited.

A “301″ status code means that a page has permanently been moved to a new location. In contrast, the “302″ status code indicates that a page has only temporarily been moved.

Generally speaking, a 301 redirect is the most search engine friendly method for redirecting users and engines to a new location. This method should be used any time you have permanently moved a page, or site, to a new address.

This includes any time that you have changed the names of web pages in your site, moved your site to a new domain, or pointed an extra domain at an existing site.

There are a number of ways to accomplish the 301 redirect. Some are dependant on the server that you are hosted on, and some methods are pure choice.

Redirect in ColdFusion: <.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently"> <.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com"> Redirect in PHP: <? Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" ); ?> Redirect in ASP: <%@ Language=VBScript %> <% Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location", " http://www.new-url.com" > Redirect in ASP .NET: <script runat="server"> private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"; Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com"); } </script> .htaccess Redirect Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you are currently using a redirect in your site, you can use the following tool to verify that you are making proper use of the 301 redirect.

Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

Enter the URL to check:





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6 Comments

  1. JayeshLodha

    October 16, 2006 @ 7:34 am

    Can any one help me to set 301 redirect correctly.

    I have a one domain and 2 subdomain on it.

    http://www.mydomain.com
    and
    http://sub1.mydomain.com
    http://sub2.mydomain.com

    When I will set 301 redirect from non www version of website to www version of the website, will it create a following urls mentioned below ?

    http://www.mydomain.com
    http://www.sub1.mydomain.com
    http://www.sub2.mydomain.com

    If it comes, how to correct ?

    I also want to 301 redirect all the pages under

    http://www.mydomain.com/sub1/ -> http://sub1.mydomain.com/
    and
    http://www.mydomain.com/sub2/ -> http://sub2.mydomain.com/

    Can you help me to set all these right.

  2. zacheos

    October 22, 2006 @ 12:21 pm

    Please take a look at the Module mod_rewrite
    URL Rewriting Engine
    and the URL Rewriting Guide for more information on mod_rewrite and its uses. I can also be hired to make these changes for you… I can’t give everything away for free ;).

  3. Jaxson

    November 29, 2006 @ 5:23 am

    Is there any special techniques that can be used to optimize a wordpress blog on my server for SEO. One issue I see is no way to change the title tags on each page, where it seems to take the blog name for the home page.
    I have several hundred 600+ inbound links.
    I have pinged Technorati manually and used pingoat as well as pingomatic every time I add a new blog.
    There is plenty of content, about 30 articles.
    What else can I do? What else should I do to optimize my blog?

  4. zacheos

    November 29, 2006 @ 5:54 pm

    Yes! Please take a look at these posts here and here.

    However - the best thing you could possibly do to promote your blog is POST LOTS OF CONTENT. I cannot stress this enough. Content is king when it comes to blogs.

  5. Dan

    December 13, 2006 @ 11:57 pm

    Is there anyway to redirect my myspace page to a different homepage?

  6. zach

    January 11, 2007 @ 8:23 pm

    No.. There really is no way to do this. Even if you found a way, you would run the risk of loosing your account.

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