Redirects and site moves

A redirect sends a browser or crawler from one URL to another. Done well, it preserves visitors and ranking signals when URLs change. Done badly, it loses both.

Types

Situation	Use
URL changed for good, page moved, pages merged	301 or 308
http to https, non-www to www	301 or 308
Temporary promotion, A/B test, maintenance	302 or 307
Page removed with no equivalent	404 or 410, not a redirect

Chains and loops

A chain is A → B → C. A loop is A → B → A. Googlebot follows up to 10 hops, but every hop slows users down and wastes crawling. Google's site move guide recommends keeping chains short. Fix chains by pointing every old URL straight to the final destination, and update internal links so they point to final URLs and do not depend on redirects at all.

Redirect only to equivalents

Redirecting many unrelated URLs to the home page or one category confuses users and is often treated like a soft 404. Redirect a discontinued product to its replacement or its category if a visitor would find that useful. Otherwise let it return 404 or 410.

Planning a site move

Google's site move guide describes these steps:

1. Prepare and test the new site on a staging host that is blocked from indexing, for example with password protection.
2. Create a URL map from every old URL to its new URL. Export old URLs from your sitemap, a crawl and Search Console, so you do not miss pages that only exist in one source.
3. Configure server-side permanent redirects and test them before launch.
4. Update internal links, canonicals, hreflang and the sitemap to the new URLs. Remove any staging Disallow or noindex rules.
5. For a domain change, verify both domains in Search Console and use the Change of Address tool on the old site.
6. Monitor traffic, indexing and crawl errors for both old and new URLs.
7. Keep redirects as long as possible, generally at least a year.

Platform notes

• PrestaShop: core redirect options for deleted products are limited and vary between versions. Many stores use a redirect module or server rules for bulk redirects during migrations.
• Shopify: Online Store, then Navigation, then URL Redirects, with CSV import for bulk redirects.
• WordPress: a redirect plugin or server rules. Some SEO plugins include a redirect manager.