Introduction

You may have heard of your SEO consultant or SEO agency refer to a “301 redirects”, yet you might not know this means?

Quite simply put, instead of some marketing agencies deleting a page on your company’s website, and therefore losing the backlinks that are linked to that page, sometimes a 301 redirect is used instead.

Let’s give you an example, let’s say that your business sells running trainers online, there might be a popular brand and model of running trainer that people frequently purchase from your business.

However, your business might stop stocking that model of running trainer, as the running trainer manufacturer now has a new pair of running trainers that has replaced the old model of running trainer.

Therefore instead of deleting that page, sometimes a digital marketing agency may recommend sometimes that a “301 redirect” is used, that’s in order to direct the customer to another page.

For example, instead of deleting the page that sells the running trainer that is no longer available because it is no longer made by the manufacturer, it might redirect to a page that shows all of the other running trainers that you sell that are made by that particular brand as well?

So instead of the customer seeing a 404-page error, because the page has been deleted, instead a 301 redirect could be used, to direct the shopper to the main page that shows of the other running trainers that you stock of that brand, this might help your business in two ways:

·        The business may reduce it’s bounce rate

·        The business will not display a 404 page error, instead the customer can be shown other products that they may wish to purchase.

That way you may reduce your businesses “bounce rate”, you may help your customers to find other suitable products that they may wish to purchase.

What does 301 page redirect mean?

A 301 page redirect, is simply a page being directed towards another page on your company website.

Let’s say for example that you run an solicitors’ practice that specialises in employment law, and your solicitors practice then deletes solicitors that are no longer working for the practice.

Therefore you may redirect customers from the pages that show solicitors that no longer work for your business, to pages that show the current solicitors that work for the business.  

Why do SEO company’s use 301 page redirects?

301-page redirects should only be implemented by an SEO agency that’s can offer high-quality white hat work.

301 redirects are often used so that link equity, that is the backlinks leading to one page can then be redirected towards another page.

For example, your company may have invested for a long time in organic SEO, the agency might’ve spent many hours building high-quality backlinks, if you were to delete a page that has high-quality backlinks leading to it, then you could lose these backlinks as well.

Instead what you can do is you can redirect that page towards another page on your website.

Why 301 redirects are sometimes referred to as permanent redirects

You may also hear your web designers your SEO company refer to “301 page redirects” as permanent redirects.

For example, let’s say that your business sells dishwashers online, you may discontinue one product, yet instead of then deleting that page, you may wish to redirect that page to the page that shows which other dishwashers that are made by that manufacturer.

This may help to reduce your company’s bounce rate

Deleting pages

Therefore before you delete pages on your company website, you should talk to your SEO agency to see if there are any good quality backlinks leading to that page, and whether they can recommend if a 301 redirect to another page should be used instead of deleting that page.

Backlinks

Earning high quality backlinks often takes a very long time, that’s to say business here in Cardiff might’ve spent many years earning high-quality backlinks, that’s why it is not advisable to just see whether or not a 301 redirect should be used instead.

Sometimes used by e-commerce businesses

Often 301 redirects are used by e-commerce businesses, to point a customer at a new product after a product has been discontinued.

Link building

Often an SEO business will spend a large amount of time building backlinks, all backlinks must be built in a white hat way, yet to build good quality backlinks often take many hours.

And also, many agencies will agree the backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors.

This simply means that if you have a lot of good quality backlinks, and these good-quality backlinks are leading to pages on your website, then you should consult with your agency whether it is a good idea to delete a page, that’s because if you do delete those pages you could lose all of those good-quality backlinks which could negatively impact your businesses SEO.

Therefore instead the marketing agency may advise that instead use 301 redirects

How our agency can help

Our agency can help your business to implement a 301 page redirects, we can also help by providing organic SEO to your business, you can also offer WordPress web design, content marketing and link building.

Tree Top is an established marketing agency that’s based in Cardiff, we can offer you high-quality white hat SEO, we have many SEO consultants that work at our agency which can offer you high-quality SEO work.

For a quote for web design services or for organic and local SEO why not give our business a call today?