should i use 301 redirect or not?

MeghanClaire · 06-19-2015, 02:33 AM

Hi,

My current website url is: http://www.example.com and I will release a completely new website that will use a SSL Certificate and because it’s a full new website all the url’s will be new and different from the “old” website. I'm using Hostforlife.eu hosting service, they told me to use the following lines on my .htaccess file:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

But when researching for this on google, I have found many websites telling that we should always use a 301 redirect and to do that the .htaccess file should be:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

So in order to resume, it’s the same domain, but now with a SSL Certificate and a full new website. In this case do I need to use the 301 redirect on my .htaccess file?
Thanks

astrogeek · 06-19-2015, 08:52 PM

Welcome to LQ!

Your choice really, but I would suggest the 301 from the information you have provided.

From Apache docs:

Quote:

Any valid HTTP response status code may be specified, using the syntax [R=305], with a 302 status code being used by default if none is specified.

So if you use R without a code, 302 will be used.

From w3c HTTP/1.1 specs:

Quote:

10.3.2 301 Moved Permanently

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs...

The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response.

10.3.3 302 Found

The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests.

From your information it looks to me as if you intend the move to be permanent. Additionally, since the URL mapping is completely different there is no point in the client keeping the old URL as 302 would imply, so just get them to the new site and they will need to locate and bookmark the corresponding new information.

So, yes I would say use the 301.

Tim Abracadabra · 06-20-2015, 03:37 AM

Hi MeghanClaire,

Just wanted to expand on astrogeek's spot on info.

The redirect in your post only changes http:// URLs to https:// URLs.
As mentioned, no consideration is given to the pre-existing or old URLs,
and old bookmarks from your current audience will get 404 not found errors
as well as any links from other web sites.

Also, search engines like Google, Bing,.. will keep all your old pages in their
index for a significant amount of time (Days, Weeks, Months, ...) after they are
gone and except for your home page there will be a mix of the old and new pages.

In addition to this, search engines use the previous backlinks(Links to your pages)
as a metric in ranking your site's pages for search queries. Without those
backlinks, in addition to the aforementioned drawbacks, you risk a drop in rankings.

I would recommend 301 redirecting your old pages to the new page URLs that have the most relevant content. This can really help you maintain your current audience, new visitors and search engine ranking.

While this Google article also takes in consideration domain name changes, it
is a good read for just URL and protocol changes as well: Move a site with URL changes.

Another relevant article is: Change page URLs with 301 redirects.

Hope that helps,
Tim