When creating a website and planning to switch to Wix, it’s not always possible to create URLs that will match the ones from your old website. That’s why Wix allows its users to ste up 301 redirects from old URLs to the new ones. Let’s see how you can do it.
How to set up redirect on Wix
Simply follow these steps to set up redirect for your website on Wix:
- Go to SEO tools in your website’s admin panel.
- Select URL Redirect Manager.
- Select + New redirect.
- Add the old URL you want to redirect from, below the Old URL.
- Type the URL path of your new page and select it from the dropdown list.
- Click Save & Close or Save & Add Another to create more redirects.
Keep in mind that there are different kinds of redirects on the web. Let’s dive deeper into this topic.
The difference between 301, 302 and 307 redirect
301 redirect should be used for constant URL changes on your Wix site while the 302 is suitable for temporary changes. A 301 link may show up across the web more frequently than the 302 redirect.
Just as a visitor comes across a nonexistent page on your website, the 301 redirect link wheels out to forward them in the direction of some other website. This is how you may warn search engines that some page was shifted and that they have to transfer the old page’s rank to a new page.
Below you’ll find some cases for you to apply a 301 redirect:
- The page’s URL address has been altered.
- You’ve deleted a page from your site and need to forward new visitors to your homepage.
- You’ve imported some content and the URL’s modified.
- You want to redirect to some other domain.
302 redirect directs website visitors to some other URL as soon as they follow a link to an outdated page according to URL to URL mapping. This procedure shows search engines that this particular page was displaced for a time. But if this occurs the new page won’t be granted with the same rank as the previous one for the redirect is for a short time and it will be back live with its old rates.
These are common reasons for you to put to use 302 redirect:
You are about to set back a page for a time to restore it and map your website users towards it afterwards, nex to boosting it with new offers, etc.
You want to replace a page temporarily circling through various offers on your website during a year.
307 redirect means HTTP status code messaging that the URL address a website user requests has been moved to some temporary district and will be back very soon. 307s took the place of 302s after the advent of HTTP 1. 1. These ones are likewise used as an internal redirect if HTTPS is enforced.
Below you’ll observe some mainstream scenarios for you to configure a 301 redirect link on your Wix website to forward your audience to the URL you want them to land.
Altered URLs
Use a 301 redirect link the moment permanently alters the URL of your Wix website’s page.
Eliminated website pages
In order to prohibit your site visitors from coming across your 404 not found error page, configure a 301 redirect to your website’s homepage or map to any other URL you need.
Imported content
Supposing you are going to send content from some host, you have to configure a redirect link as well with a proper URL mapping. You’ll have to consult your previous host to ensure you’ve got a correct URL structure for the first part of your redirect link.
What is a redirect loop
Redirect loops typically appear just as an URL redirects to another URL, which in turn redirects back to the URL that was originally requested, and this all happens due to incorrect URL mapping. It all results in a perpetual course of redirects.
Redirect loops at most serve as a signal of a poor redirect configuration of a website. They may be generated, for example, by inaccurate redirect rules within a server’s configuration or CMS’s manager or maybe misalignment between systems.
Usually, these errors are demonstrated in the browser tab. And your Wix site users won’t see the requested page. It’s all the same with search engines - due to a redirect loop they will never reach a desired page and after a while they’ll stop, soon after understanding they have stuck in the loop.
Remember that a redirect funnels ranking signals from one URL to another, for example, the link authority and relevance. Within a loop, this process never takes place, which indicates that the website drops those signals. And this hurts your site’s overall SEO.
How you can get rid of the redirect loop
If you get a redirect loop error for some URL address on your Wix website, then check where exactly the URL is redirecting you to. Just when as you cast light on it, look up that URL and check where this link forwards to. That’s how you will find the exact point where the redirect loop starts.
Redirect loop is not equal to the redirect chain because this one does eventually lead to the final URL. From SEO and user’s point of view, it’s better to have redirect chains on your Wix site than redirect loops.
Tip: redirect loops can likewise be detected by means of Google Search Console - in the Index Coverage report, just below the type “Redirect error”.
You should also keep in mind that your browser’s cache forwards belligerently, and this can lead to some false positives, as your cache abides to old redirects. So, when struggling to get rid of redirect loops on your Wix website, regularly clear your browser cache before you start.
Thenceforth you’ve found where exactly redirect loops occur on your site, go on to repairing them and stopping the loop. And after the loop was removed, clear the browser's cache once again, for the reason that the loop can be cached too.
Redirecting from HTTP to HTTPS
It’s an terribly important step in your Wix site development as HTTPS is considered as a ranking factor by Google. On the condition that you don’t want to drop positions in the SERPs, then it’s incredibly important to configure this sort of redirect.
Setting up a redirect links from HTTP to HTTPS supposes considering the following aspects:
- You are to choose an SSL certificate for your site.
- You need to warn Google about your new protocol.
- You need to refresh all your internal links.
Selecting a certificate for your site is a substantial step you don’t want to miss. Your SSL certificate contains:
- The certificate authority.
- The server name.
- The server’s public encryption key.
This certificate serves to encode the messages between your website and the user. It prevents other users from reading private info such as credit card details or passwords.
Then it’s time to present to Google the new protocol. Firstly, you have to know is that Google considers the HTTP and HTTP redactions of your Wix site as two different websites. So you can proceed to your Google Search Console to confirm the HTTPS version of your website. The transfer will take several days, so it’s no big deal if you don’t spot any changes right away.
Just as the redirect is stored, you’d better to make certain that your site’s internal links|the internal links on your website have HTTPS URLs and perform as they should. To make it possible, use any well-known instrument offering site audit features.
What you need to know about new rules of 301
According to the current Google updates, there are few things you want to think of before starting to use a 301 redirect on your Wix website.
You still risk losing traffic
Although good news here is that Google no longer punishes a 301 redirect with loss of PageRank signal. But the last one is only one signal amidst hundreds of others utilized by Google to rank sites.
Suppose you apply a 301 redirect to map to some irrelevant URL, then your redirects to bear any weight. In accordance with Google, these redirects are even handled like soft 404 pages. This means, it’s better for you that the only thing that changes when you create a 301 redirect link is the URL.
Using 302 redirect for every purpose is not safe
Not so long ago, Google started treating 302 redirect just like 301 because of a huge number of websites that were applying the invalid type of redirect link for their URL changes. It all caused havoc on how Google rates websites.
Likewise, there are still some questions remaining, for example, the community is still not sure if 301s and 302s are comparable in every way. And though 302 is a web standard, there are some other search engines that may treat 302 really differently from Google.
Your traffic stands a chance to be preserved after you migrate to HTTPS
Google motivates all website owners to migrate to HTTPS and even transformed it into a ranking signal. Nevertheless, there are lots of sites that don’t want to move to HTTPS employing 301 redirects as it may cost them a huge traffic loss. And this is apparently the reason why Google turned the migration to 301s holding down PageRank.
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