If a web­site moves per­ma­nent­ly and, for exam­p­le, the domain chan­ges, the new address can be noti­fied to the search engi­nes and web brow­sers via a 301 redi­rect.

If a blog exists for a cer­tain time, the­re are many links on the web. If the url chan­ges, all links beco­me inva­lid. Visi­tors are direc­ted to the unloved 404 page as well as to the search engi­nes. Thus the page sinks in the ran­king of the search engi­nes and in the repu­ta­ti­on of the visi­tors.

Now visi­tors will not only be redi­rec­ted to the new site, but at the same time the infor­ma­ti­on will be shared that this move is per­ma­nent. Of cour­se every exis­ting link should be con­side­red.

Every old link should auto­ma­ti­cal­ly refer to the new blog. For exam­p­le, the link should refer from https://buecher.fl‑e.de/2019/02/21/­thril­ler-einer-wird-ster­ben/ to https://buechernarr.org/2019/02/21/­thril­ler-einer-wird-ster­ben/.

Plugins

The­re are plug­ins that are sup­po­sed to do this for you, but the­se redi­rect plug­ins all did not work relia­bly. Sin­gle redi­rects were no pro­blem, but who wants to defi­ne more than 250 redi­rects by hand? It’s quite pos­si­ble that the plug­ins were not set up cor­rect­ly, but we did­n’t find any ins­truc­tions on how to use wild­card plug­ins to take all links into account.

For this reason we have set up a 301 redi­rect direct­ly via .htac­cess.

Atten­ti­on: In order for the redi­rec­tions to work per­ma­nent­ly, you must remain the domain owner of the old domain! If the domain is can­cel­led or released, all files on the ser­ver will also be dele­ted – inclu­ding the .htac­cess file. As a result, the redi­rects no lon­ger work.

On the ser­ver of buecher.fl‑e.de (the old ser­ver) the­re must be a .htac­cess file with the fol­lo­wing con­tent:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://buechernarr.org/$1 [L,R=301]

https://buechernarr.org must of cour­se be repla­ced by your own url.

Such a 301 redi­rec­tion can be set up not only for a domain move whe­re the blog struc­tu­re has remain­ed the same, but also for an SSL set­up or if the direc­to­ries on a ser­ver have chan­ged.

 

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