301 Redirect using .htaccess
301 redirect is the smoothest and most SEO friendly way to redirect traffic for a domain or webpage. We do this with .htaccess. This will only work on Apache and not on Windows servers.
If you do have an .htaccess file in your root directory, create one and upload in ASCII (text) mode.
To redirect a single page
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html
To redirect an entire site
Redirect 301 / http://www.example.com/
301 and Search Engine Optimization
From a search engine point of view, 301 redirects are the only acceptable way to redirect URLs. In the case of moved pages, search engines will index only the new URL, but will transfer link popularity from the old URL to the new one so that search engine rankings are not affected. The same behavior occurs when additional domains are set to point to the main domain through a 301 redirect. If we use Meta-Refresh or delete the page/domain all together, we are loosing those rankings.
More information on using 301 for SEO can be found in the members forum.
2 responses to "301 Redirect using .htaccess"
A 301 redirect is being used on http://www.hypertrax.com where we used to have an SEO Directory. The 301 redirects to the Prozilla located directory at http://www.prozilla.com/directory. If we decide to move the directory again to the main prozilla.net domain where our blog is, then we will create a 301 for Prozilla.com and update Hypertrax.com’s .htaccess. This way we do not loose any rankings that the domains have.
We have used this for the new website we built. All root traffic is now 301 directed to our new address. Awesome, as Calgary painting and Calgary Painters rankings are competative.