The Redirection plugin does one main thing: it lets you redirect one URL on your site to another URL. This sounds simple, but it matters a lot for SEO and for keeping your visitors from hitting error pages.
Why Redirects Matter for SEO
When a page has been live for a while, search engines may have indexed it and other websites may link to it. That page builds up some value over time.
If you delete that page or change its URL without setting up a redirect, all that value disappears. Visitors who click old links land on a 404 error page. Search engines see that the page is gone and may remove it from their index. Any ranking that page had built is lost.
A 301 redirect tells search engines and browsers that the content has permanently moved to a new URL. The ranking value transfers to the new URL. Visitors automatically land on the right page. Nobody sees an error.
When You Need a Redirect
You need a redirect whenever you change a page’s URL. Common situations include renaming a post or page, changing your URL structure, deleting a page that had content, moving content from one page to another, and changing your domain name.
Installing the Redirection Plugin
Go to Plugins, then Add New in your WordPress dashboard. Search for Redirection by John Godley. Install it and activate it. Run through the quick setup wizard and accept the defaults.
Setting Up Your First Redirect
Go to Tools, then Redirection in your WordPress menu. Click Add New in the Redirects section.
In the Source URL field, type the old URL path — just the path, not the full URL. For example, if the old address was yoursite.com/old-post-name, type /old-post-name.
In the Target URL field, type where you want visitors to go. Leave the redirect type as 301. Click Add Redirect. Done.
Reading the 404 Error Log
The plugin logs every 404 error on your site — every time someone tries to visit a URL that does not exist. Go to Tools, then Redirection and click the 404s tab.
Some of these are meaningless — bots scanning for vulnerabilities. Ignore those. But look for URLs that look like they should exist. Maybe an old post URL, or a link from another site that points to a changed URL. Those are worth creating redirects for. Click the arrow next to a 404 entry and you can create a redirect for it in one click.
Check this log every few weeks, especially after making changes to your site’s structure.
One Important Setting to Check
In Redirection’s settings, make sure Monitor changes to posts is enabled. With this on, every time you change a post’s slug, Redirection automatically creates a redirect from the old URL to the new one. You do not have to do it manually. This is the setting that prevents you from accidentally breaking links every time you edit a post.
Common Mistakes
Redirect chains happen when you redirect A to B, then later redirect B to C, then redirect C to D. Search engines follow the chain, but some link equity gets lost at each hop. Try to redirect directly to the final destination rather than building up chains.
Install the plugin, set up automatic monitoring, check the 404 log occasionally, and create redirects whenever you change URLs. That covers 90% of what you need it for.