Site architecture
Redirect
A redirect sends a request for one URL to another, with a status code stating whether the move is permanent or temporary.
What is redirect?
A redirect sends a request for one URL to another, with a status code stating whether the move is permanent or temporary. A 301 or 308 signals permanent; a 302 or 307 signals temporary.
What turns on it
Redirects are how a site changes shape without losing the authority its old URLs accumulated, and incomplete redirect mapping is the main cause of migration loss.
The mechanics
Implemented as single hops rather than chains, mapped from a full inventory drawn from logs, analytics and backlink data, and kept for at least a year.
A frequent error
Redirecting everything to the homepage destroys the specific relevance each URL earned. A redirect should go to the closest equivalent page or nowhere.
Most disagreements about this turn out to be disagreements about the definition.
Where this comes up in the work
It is part of Website Design and Development, and more specifically of Performance-first build. Across the rest of the work it shows up in:
- Technical SEO, where it sets the ceiling on finding the template change that quietly dropped the canonical tags
- Entity and Semantic SEO, because writing anchor text that says what the destination is about depends on it
- Local SEO, in which it shows up as keeping dozens of locations consistent without the central team becoming the bottleneck
- Ecommerce SEO, where it decides making the stock feed and the site agree before the customer finds out
What to check
Two questions that establish whether this is actually in order on a given site:
- Whether it was reviewed since the last platform change
- Whether the thing being reported is the thing you think is being reported
More in site architecture
Common questions
Who owns redirect in a business?
Whoever is accountable for deciding which platforms are not worth the work this quarter. Problems with this tend to persist because nobody is.
How much work is redirect?
Less than people expect to check and sometimes more than they expect to fix. Implemented as single hops rather than chains, mapped from a full inventory drawn from logs, analytics and backlink data, and kept for at least a year. SaaS and technology answers what, Travel and hospitality answers how much.
Where does redirect sit in the priority order?
It comes before work that assumes it is already handled, and after anything actively blocking indexation.
What is the evidence for redirect mattering?
By measuring it rather than by argument. Implemented as single hops rather than chains, mapped from a full inventory drawn from logs, analytics and backlink data, and kept for at least a year. Where this gets detailed is Paid Social and Meta Ads; where it gets argued about is Technical SEO.
Is redirect the same as anything else?
Redirecting everything to the homepage destroys the specific relevance each URL earned. A redirect should go to the closest equivalent page or nowhere. Worth clarifying before agreeing to work on it. The definition is in Lead form or Landing page. The practice is in Local SEO or National SEO.
Is redirect a ranking factor?
Redirects are how a site changes shape without losing the authority its old URLs accumulated, and incomplete redirect mapping is the main cause of migration loss. The honest framing is that it removes a constraint rather than adding a boost. Anyone scoping this ends up comparing What should we fix first on a new site? against Why did our organic traffic drop? sooner or later.
Get the two or three things that matter
Send what you have. We read it before the call, so the call is about decisions rather than discovery.