301 Redirects

What is 301 Redirect?

301 redirect is a way to permanently move one page from one location (URL) to another.

Redirecting traffic ensures that whenever someone tries to visit an outdated URL, they will be taken to the new URL path.  

/old > 301 Redirected to > /new

Why is it called 301?

Whenever we make a request to a server, we get a response code. These are called HTTP status codes.

Any code within 200-299 range means that the request was successful.

Any status between 301, 302, and 308 means that the requested item, in this case a page, has been relocated.

301 is a bit more specific, it means that the requested asset has been moved permanently.

We won’t cover other types of redirects such as 302, 303, 308, etc. since you can’t set these up with Webflow.

301 Redirects Implications for SEO

It’s important to use 301 redirects every time there are any URL changes because it helps websites maintain PageRank.

What is PageRank?

PageRank is one of the main algorithms determining how search engines like Google evaluate pages against each other.

To simplify…

PageRank is like an internet voting system, every time you link to something - you cast a vote.

And the more votes (backlinks) page has, the more trustworthy it is.

This way PageRank allows search engines to determine trust in your web page and the whole website.

It also allows search engines to allocate more resources (crawl budget) to sites that have more trust.

That’s exactly why 301 redirects are so important - we don’t want to lose our “votes” when we make changes to our website!

Redirecting for SEO

To make sure we don’t lose all backlinks to our website, whenever we have to change any URL to a new one, we set up a redirect.

This way we keep all the links (votes) that URL might have gotten over time.

If we didn’t create redirects, those links would lead to broken links (404).

SEO experts use paid tools and can see all the links that are coming to your website from other websites.

They can also see audits for incoming links from other websites that had URL changes and have not been redirected.

Getting traffic to pages that have been moved, without setting redirects, can lower your ranking.

To sum up:

We redirect pages, to make sure we don’t lose any link equity and trust search engines have in our website.

Broken Links Create a Bad User Experience

Obviously, there are user experience issues and development roadblocks if you don’t redirect pages after you change URLs to new ones.

If you don’t 301 redirect your old page to the new one:

• All links on your own site will lead to 404
• All links from private chats and social media will lead to 404
• Etc.

Here is a Google Search Console screenshot of a disastrous website migration without 301 redirects:

When Should You Use 301 Redirects?

This means you should use 301 redirects every time you make any slug changes to any published page for any active Webflow website.

In many cases Webflow automatically redirects such changes, just to be sure. Which is great!

The most common and complex 301 use case is of course…

Redirecting Pages During Website Migration

If you are migrating a website from any other platform to Webflow, you will need to make sure all old links are redirected to new ones.

Because of how Webflow CMS is structured, there are scenarios where migrating even smaller websites will require a lot of redirects.

If you are a Webflow developer, designer, or site owner planning a Website migration be sure to:

• Audit all existing URLs
• Audit all incoming external links
• Audit all pages that are getting any traffic on the Search Console

After that, you should be able to set up a 301 redirection plan that not only will keep all (or most) of the traffic but can result in a more scalable sitemap architecture.

How to Redirect Pages (URLs) in Webflow?

To redirect any web page (URL) in Webflow:

• Go to Site Settings > Publishing > 301 Redirects
• Add an old URL that is not used anymore as “old path”
• Set the new URL that you want to use instead as “redirect to path”
• Click Add Redirect Path and publish your site

How to Bulk 301 Redirect Pages (URLs) in Webflow?

Need to add many 301 redirects at once to your Webflow website?

You can use Webflow 301 redirect bulk importer!

Webflow 301 Wildcard Redirects

Wildcard 301 redirects allow you to create custom rules instead of redirecting each URL one by one.

Wildcard redirects are an advanced way to control your redirects at scale.

They are extremely helpful if you have non-permanent URLs with UTM filter parameters or similar other complex cases.

Just so you know what’s possible with wildcard redirects, here’s one specific example:

• Shoes ecommerce product categories have color filters
• If you choose a red filter, you want the temporary link to redirect to the correct red shoe category

You write a rule that looks something like this…

In the example above we created a wildcard rule that takes any shoes related category and redirects it to the red shoes category whenever that category has a red color filter applied.

This is handy, because if your user would apply this filter and would share this link with someone, they would land in the red shoes category, not on a page that has a temporary filter set.

That’s just some of the basic magic that wildcard redirects can achieve!

But make sure to check if your redirects have any logical flaws.

Redirect Loops

What is a redirect loop?

A redirect loop happens when one URL 1 is redirected to URL 2, but URL 2 is also redirected to URL 1.

This means if you try to visit URL 1 or URL 2 - you will be infinitely redirected in a loop, never reaching any pages and your browser eventually will decide…

Too Many Redirects

Too many redirects is an error that browsers show when they notice that you are stuck in an infinite redirection loop.

Needless to say, redirection loops are extremely bad for SEO and user experience!

Always check your newly created redirects to make sure you don’t create infinite loops by accident.

Let’s Recap!

301 redirects are rules that allows us to permanently redirect any URL to another URL.

In other words it’s a system that allows you to “change where a page is located on your sitemap”.

They are needed because someone might try to use old links that don’t exist anymore and solve problems where users couldn’t reach pages they could before.

Redirects are also important for SEO because search engines track page rank and backlinks from other websites to your website convey trust.

301 redirects in Webflow are controlled from page settings and can be easily created or deleted.

Lastly, it is important to know that wrongly created 301 redirects can result in redirect loops!