When a user attempts to access a web page that no longer exists or was moved to a new location, they encounter a 404 error, or “Not Found” error. 

Not only can this be frustrating for visitors and damaging to your website’s overall user experience but it can also negatively impact your site’s search rankings. There’s a simple solution however. Setting up redirects.

A redirect is a server-side instruction that tells a visitor’s web browser to automatically load a different URL instead of the original one. This ensures that visitors are directed to the correct content, even if the original URL is no longer valid.

The SEO Impact of 404 Errors

• User Experience: A 404 error can lead to a poor user experience. Visitors may become frustrated and leave your website, impacting your bounce rate and time on site metrics. It’s often easier for a user to click back and move on to the next search result in the list rather than try to locate the relevant content on the original site.
• Search Engine Rankings: Search engines like Google value websites with a good user experience. A high number of 404 errors can signal to search engines that your site is poorly maintained, potentially negatively affecting your search rankings.
• Internal Linking: Broken links can disrupt your site’s internal linking structure, making it harder for search engines to crawl and index your content.

The Benefits of Setting Redirects

• Improved User Experience: Redirects ensure that visitors are always directed to the correct content, preventing frustration and improving your site’s usability.
• Enhanced SEO: By minimizing 404 errors, you can improve your site’s search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic.
• Preserved Internal Linking: Redirects help maintain your site’s internal linking structure, ensuring that search engines can efficiently crawl and index your content.

Types of Redirects

• 301 Redirect: This is a permanent redirect, indicating that the content has been moved permanently to a new URL. Search engines will update their index accordingly.
• 302 Redirect: This is a temporary redirect, suggesting that the content is temporarily unavailable at the original URL but will eventually be restored at some point in the future.
• 308 Redirect: Similar to a 301 redirect, a 308 redirect is a permanent redirect. However, it’s used when you want to signal that the content has been moved permanently, but you don’t want search engines to update their cached copy of the original URL. This can be useful for preserving search engine rankings and traffic for content that has been moved to a new location but may eventually be restored to its original URL.

How to Set Up Redirects

The process of setting up redirects depends on your website’s platform and hosting. Most popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla offer basic built-in tools for handling redirects and some more advanced options are available with plugins like Redirection for WordPress (A Skunkworks favourite). Redirects can also be configured at the hosting or webserver level using tools like .htaccess files, and even at “the edge” through tools like the Cloudflare proxy.

Best Practices for Redirects

• Use 301 Redirects Whenever Possible: If the content has been moved permanently, use a 301 redirect to signal this to search engines.
• Create a Redirect Map: Maintain a list of all redirects on your website to help you manage and track them. A tool like Redirection takes care of this automatically.
• Avoid Chained Redirects: Multiple redirects in a row can slow down your site and confuse search engines. Too many can set off alarms bells.
• Monitor for Broken Links: Regularly check your website for broken links to identify and address any issues. The Redirection plugin includes a built-in 404 error monitor that logs any URLs that are in need of a redirect. Additionally Google Search Console and other SEO tools can let you know where attention is needed.

Conclusion

Setting up redirects is a crucial aspect of technical SEO. By minimizing 404 errors and ensuring a smooth user experience, the search engine rankings of your law firm’s site will be improved and you’ll attract more visitors and leads as a result. Skunkworks follows the best practices outlined in this article for all our retainer clients who prefer to spend their time practicing law than SEO. Think you’d prefer to pass off responsibilities like these to someone more experienced in this area? Talk to us and let’s see what we can do for you.