CoreCommerce

Maintain Google SEO Rankings

Let's say you've just redesigned some pages of your web site. The pages have high search engine rankings that you don't want to lose. How can you safely redirect web site traffic from your old pages to the new pages without losing your rankings? You can do this by using a 301 redirect.

What is a 301 redirect?

A 301 redirect is the best method to preserve your current search engine rankings when redirecting web pages or a web site. The code "301" is interpreted as "moved permanently." Think of this as a tool to help search engines contain your high search engine rankings with your old website, in the event your product or category URLs change (typically when moving to another shopping cart company). It tells the search engine that the old page (i.e. content) still exists but has a new URL.

How to implement the 301 Redirect

To implement a 301 redirect, do the following:

• Log in to your CoreCommerce admin panel
• Hover over the Site Content tab and click 301 Redirects
• Click Add New 301 Redirect and enter your Old URL and a New URL.  The URL for both links has to be a complete URL for example http://www.mydomain.com/myitem.html will work, but www.mydomain.com/myitem.html will not.  Put the Old URL in the first text box and the New URL (where the old page should redirect to) in the second text box.  Click on Save to save the new rule
• You can create as many 301 redirect rules as you would like, but having several of them can slow down the loading time for your store.  You should try to limit how many rules you have set up.

Testing 301 Redirects

To test to ensure the 301 redirect is working correctly after you've created a 301 redirect, simply paste the old URL into your browser and ensure that it redirects to the new URL. 

 

NOTE: Changes to your 301 redirects may take up to 24 hours to take effect. In order to speed this up, you can go to Account > Domains, add in a fake domain, then delete it. 

 

Below is a video that shows how to set up 301 redirects.