To add some context: say you're changing your site's URL structure during a redesign. Hundreds of pages, some ranking well.
Some of the pages have links from other sites and bring in steady search traffic, sooo losing them would hurt. I know redirects are involved, but Im unsure about the details: which status code, what to do with pages that no longer exist, and how long to keep the redirects. what am i doing wrong??
ok so before launch, export a full list of current URLs: crawl the site, plus pull teh URLs that get traffic from your search console and anlaytics. after launch, run that list through a crawler to confirm each returns a single 301 to a 200 page. redirect chains (old → older → new) are worth flattening.
same domain, but we're also merging a few dozen thin posts into longer guides, so not all URLs map cleanly. A handful will simply be deleted.
ok so the core is one-to-one 301 redirects from every old URL to its new equivalent. not everything to the homepage; thats treated more like a soft 404... if the pattern is regular, a single rewrite rule covers it:
rewrite ^/\d{4}/\d{2}/([^/]+)/?$ /blog/$1/ permanent;
worked for me anyway 🤷
just a heads up, if u have to delete those thin posts entirely, dont just let them 404, if a page has decent backlinks or dceent traffic, try to redirect it to teh most relevant category page or a related high-value guide instead of teh homepage, sending everyone to teh home page can dilute ur link equity and make teh user experience pretty frustrating lol... also, make sure u monitor your 404 logs closely for the first month after launch..... its the best way to spot any missed URLs that didnt make it into ur redirect map!!
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