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.