What are URLs redirects?
URL Redirects, or URL Forwarding, is a technique used to move your page’s visitors from the original page to another one. If a web user visits page A of your site, they will be forwarded to page B instead.
There are many types of URL redirects, the most common ones being 301 and 302 redirects.
301 Redirect (Permanent)
Use this 301 redirect when you want to permanently move your page to a new address. All of the traffic, as well as SEO value, will be retained when migrated to the new destination. According to Moz, the 301 redirect passes between 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page. It is considered to be the most SEO-friendly type of URL redirect.
302 Redirect (Temporary)
302 redirect is used when you want to temporarily move your page to a new URL. It would come in handy in case your page A is under maintenance so you need to forward users to an alternative page B until page A is back in operation.
When using 302 redirect, search engines like Google will still index page A and display it onto search results. Only when users click on the original URL will they be directed to the alternative one.
Why should we redirect URLs?
Basically speaking, you need to redirect URLs whenever you change the location of a web page. Here are the common reasons to do so:
- A page has been deleted and you want to redirect traffic to a new one, so that users won’t experience 404 error (page not found) when visiting the original page.
- You change your website domain
- You merge two or more websites
- You restructure your website
How to redirect Shopify URLs
Shopify allows its store owners to redirect their site URLs using Shopify Admin. This is very helpful if you are not a professional developer. You still have to create redirects manually, but it is much easier compared to other methods.
A small reminder is that all Shopify URL redirects are the 301 type, the SEO-friendly type.
Now let’s check out the steps to create URL redirects on Shopify Admin:
- From your Shopify Admin, go to Online store -> Navigation -> View URL Redirects
- Click Create URL Redirect
- In Redirect from, type in the old URL that you want to redirect your visitors from
- In Redirect to, type in the new URL that you want to forward your visitors to
- Click Save redirect
When performing the steps above, please pay attention to these notices from Shopify:
- You can’t redirect URLs that begin with the following prefixes: /apps, /application, /cart, /carts, /orders, /shop, or /services.
- The new URL can be either a relative URL (for example, /collection/shirts) or a full URL (for example, http://www.example.com/collection/shirts). To redirect traffic within your primary domain, use a relative URL. To redirect outside your primary domain, use a full URL.
URL Redirect made easy with SEO Booster
If you need to redirect a lot of old URLs and find manually creating URL redirects time-consuming, you can seek help from Shopify apps. Many apps allow you to redirect URLs in bulk easily. We would like to introduce to you our SEO Booster app from Secomapp.
SEO Booster is a Shopify app that helps your store prosper with SEO marketing. It allows you to perform on-page optimization for your website so it can be ranked higher in Google search results.
SEO Booster also provides you with a feature that helps you redirect URLs in bulk – the Scan Broken Links. The feature scans your site to detect any broken link that exists within. You can then choose to redirect each link manually or let the app redirect all links automatically. Just turn on the auto functions, type down the link you need to redirect users to, and then let the app work its magic.
Also, URL redirects created by SEO Booster are all in 301 type – just like Shopify, so you can rest assured that your SEO status won’t be affected.