How to Redirect URL in WordPress

Do you want to know how to add URL redirects in WordPress? Then this is the perfect article for you. In this redirect URL tutorial, we’re going to show you the easiest way through which you can redirect a URL to another URL in your WordPress website. This will improve the user experience and help boost your site’s SEO score.

When we’re talking about URL redirection, you might think that it’s unnecessary but that’s not the case. In fact, we’ve noticed time and time again, small to big businesses face huge drop in SEO score for failing to add proper URL redirection. Due to broken pages, users just bounce out of the website. This can have serious consequences, but the solution is quite simple. If you add proper URL redirection, it will save your site from massive drawbacks.

You might be wondering, adding URL redirection is hard and requires a lot of technical skills. But it’s actually quite easy to do it. In fact it will take 5 minutes or less! So let’s get started with this tutorial and learn how to add URL redirects in WordPress.

Why add URL redirects in WordPress?

First let’s clearly address the issue, why you would want to add URL redirects in the first place.

Wherever a visitor clicks a link of your website, they look for something particular. If that link leads to an error message instead, we can understand the disappointment. This will cause the visitor to leave the website and this will cause a bad impression. In this way, your site will lose traffic as well as SEO score.

When managing your WordPress website, there can be situations where there might be broken links or missing pages. This isn’t a normal condition but it can happen sometimes. Small and even large businesses sometimes face this issue. If that’s the case, your WordPress website will lose traffic and rankings. But if you add URL redirects, users will be able to find relevant content and as a result, you won’t lose traffic or SEO score.

How to add redirect URL in WordPress

Now that we understand what URL redirection is and why it is important, let’s now learn how to add URL redirects in WordPress.

As we mentioned in the beginning, WordPress by default, doesn’t give you the URL redirection feature. To do this, we have to use a plugin. For this demonstration, we’re going to use a plugin called Redirection by Inisev. At the time of writing this article, this plugin has 90,000+ activate installations and a really good ratings.

So let’s go through the steps of installing the plugin and adding URL redirection with it.

Step 1: Install and activate Redirection plugin

From your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Plugins > Add Plugin and search for “Redirection”. There might be another plugin with the same name, but we’re going to use the one from Inisev.

Install and activate the plugin.

Step 2: Add URL redirects

Now for the main part. As soon as you activate the plugin, it’s going to take you to the section where you can add your URL redirects. If it didn’t for some reason, then you can manually go there. Simply click on the Redirection option from your WordPress admin dashboard. On the top you should see multiple tabs. Make sure the Specific URL Redirection tab is selected.

After looking at this interface, you might’ve already guessed what needs to be done. There are two input boxes here. The input box on the left with the “Redirect from the specific URL” text is where you put your URL you want to redirect. The input box on the right with the text “to a specific URL” is where you want the users to be redirected to. See, it’s so simple.

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Step 3: Add HTTP code and check some other advanced options (optional)

Now this part is optional. Before clicking on the “Add this redirect!” button you can click on the “Show advanced options” link to see some other options. From here you can take a look at the advanced redirect URL options for your source URL such as will it ignore trailing slashes, lower/upper case, parameters or pass on parameters. You can set a redirect header. You can also add a redirect HTTP code and finally enable/disable inclusion & exclusion rules.

After adding the links click on the “Add this redirect!” button and your URL redirection will be added. Now the URL redirection should be added to the list below. You can check the status along with other information of your URL redirects.

Now all that is left is to test if this redirection is working properly. Well, that’s how you can add URL redirections in your WordPress website. With the help of this plugin you can add several URL redirects and manage those from one place. The plugin also has advanced features where you can add Redirection Rules, automated redirects and more.

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Conclusion

If you have a WordPress website and want the website to be successful, you have to ensure there are no broken links or dead ends. If a visitor lands on your site, clicks on a link and finds an error message instead of what the visitor is looking for, it will create a bad impression and you’ll find your traffic and SEO score drop. However, if you add URL redirects, this will improve the user experience of your website and will improve performance.

After reading this article, we hope that you now understand how to add URL redirects in WordPress. There are several redirect URL plugins that you can use to add URL redirects in your WordPress website. We used a very simple and efficient plugin to achieve this. Hope you found this helpful. Also check out our YouTube channel for more informative and helpful videos.

👉 Video: How to Redirect WordPress URL | How to Add URL Redirect in WordPress

Watch the video for a more practical experience!