Skip to main content
Websites

Redirect

301 Redirect | 302 Redirect

Portrait of Lukas Horvath, co-founder of Roelu Studio
Lukas HorvathCo-founder

What is Redirect?

A redirect is a server-side rule that automatically sends a request for one URL to another. The most common types are 301 redirects, which signal a permanent move, and 302 redirects, which signal a temporary one. Search engines treat a 301 redirect as transferring most of the SEO authority from the old URL to the new one, which is why they are the standard tool for site migrations and URL changes.

Why it matters

Redirects are how you change your mind without burning the traffic you have already earned. Rename a product page, move from blog.company.com to company.com/blog, retire an old campaign — each move would normally orphan inbound links and rankings. A 301 redirect carries that equity forward. The mistake we see most: companies redesign a site, change every URL, and forget to map the old paths to the new ones. Within weeks, organic traffic drops thirty percent and nobody can figure out why. The fix is unglamorous — a spreadsheet of old-to-new URLs — but skipping it is the single most expensive website mistake.

How it works

Redirects are configured on your web server, CDN, or hosting platform. On modern hosts like Vercel or Cloudflare, you add rules to a config file or dashboard mapping the source path to the destination. A request for the old URL returns a 301 status code along with the new location, and the browser follows it automatically. Search engines update their index over the following weeks. For large migrations, you build a redirect map — old URL to new URL — and load it into the platform before launch. Tools like Screaming Frog crawl the old site so nothing gets missed.

Related terms

  • Canonical URL

    SEO/AEO/GEO

    A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the original when duplicates or near-duplicates exist, so ranking signals consolidate on one URL…

  • URL Structure

    Websites

    The way the paths on your website are organized — like /pricing or /case-studies/acme — designed to be readable, predictable, and useful for both search…

  • Website Migration

    Websites

    Moving a website to a new platform, domain, or hosting setup — and the careful work of doing it without losing rankings, traffic, or content along the way.…

  • Domain Name

    Websites

    The human-readable address visitors type to reach your website — like roelu.com — instead of the string of numbers the internet actually uses to find the…

  • Subdomain

    Websites

    A prefix attached to your main domain — like blog.roelu.com or app.stripe.com — that points to a separate part of your site or a different application…

  • Indexing

    SEO/AEO/GEO

    The process search engines use to store and organize web pages so they can show up in results — if your page isn't indexed, it can't rank, and most sites have…

  • SEO Audit

    SEO/AEO/GEO

    A structured review of a website's SEO health — covering technical setup, on-page content, backlinks, and rankings — to find what's broken, what's missing, and…