When to Use Redirect and When Not to Use It in WordPress?

Web page redirects are used for a couple of good reasons. Firstly, they send your visitors from old and nonexistent web pages, to updated URL content. WordPress conducts some of the redirects on its own, because it is designed to identify the wrong URLs and transfer them to the correct one. It is great, but some issues can also arise in the process. 

For example, if your website is transformed from HTTP to HTTPS, then WordPress is smart to locate the right page, but things get a little messy in the redirection. When a user tries to access webpage https://www.idea.com/startegy/page typing http://www.idea.com/page in the address bar, the following redirection steps occur –

• First, the user gets redirected from HTTP to HTTPS
• Then the user is redirected, if they type the URL starting with www instead of HTTP
• The user gets redirected to URL structure of the parent page
• The server then sends website resources and files towards the user’s browser

The visitor will still end up on the correct page, because WordPress is good at identifying where URLs are expected to resolve. It means the mistyped URL will resolve correctly. Unfortunately, these auto-redirection steps have its drawback… The load speed and time suffers!

When to redirect…….

WordPress is good at catching and redirecting inactive web pages or mistyped URLs, but manual WordPress redirect practice is great. 301 WP redirect plugins can help you to maintain your SEO footprints and user experience. 

In certain scenarios, redirect from old content to an updated post is appropriate and acceptable. Besides, the link juice awarded to an old post gets inherited by the new content, offering its immediate search engine standing. 

Other scenarios when redirects are proper include –

• You are updating published posts or pages, and desire to redirect traffic temporarily as you work on updates.
• You have overhauled a site’s permalink framework, and require old URLs to get redirected to a new outlay.
• WordPress redirects only when URLs requested are closely related, but it can also go wrong at times.
• You wish the outdated content URL to be redirected to its latest version.

When not to use auto redirect:

Redirects transfer your visitors from broken links and unnecessary content to updated posts. It can even be applied as a temporary measure, when specific content is getting updated. If you use redirect in unnecessary scenarios, then it can damage your site speed. You can instead use a WordPress under construction page.

For example, you designed a custom menu without WWW, but your website URL will still resolve with the WWW in the front of the URL. In this case, an auto redirect will create a lag on your site’s loading time. 

The occurrence of auto redirects can be reduced. Ensure top-level domain resolves with just a single redirect. For example, the URL http://ideal.com needs two redirects to reach https://www.ideal.com. Therefore, you will need to create a manual redirect to make it occur in a single step, then having to go trough two steps. You can use WP 301 redirect plugin to resolve the issue.

Clare Louise