When visiting your SEO agency here in Bristol, one of the SEO consultants may have mentioned that they are going to use a “301 redirect”.

Now, you might not know what a “301 redirect” means, therefore we have written this article to explain exactly what 301 redirects are, and why a lot of SEO companies in Bath and also here in Bristol use “301 redirects”.

So, what exactly is a 301 redirect?

Let’s say that you are travelling down a road, yet that road is no longer used, the traffic is therefore diverted onto a new road.

Well, this is exactly the same principle when implementing a “301 redirect”, that is you are directing your customers from an old page on your website to a new one.

Now, you might think well, why even bother to do a redirect via a 301-redirect, why not just replace the page?

Well, the answer to that is simple, often pages on your website will have good-quality backlinks, these can be used to help improve your businesses organic SEO.

Therefore, if you were to delete the page, you might severe these backlinks and this could possibly adversely affect your businesses organic SEO.

This is why white hat SEO companies sometimes use 301 redirects, to redirect a page to another page.

A lot of agencies believe that this will help the “link equity” to pass through onto the new page.

Why do SEO agencies use 301 redirects?

A lot of SEO agencies therefore use “301 redirects” so that the link equity passes through to the new page.

Let’s say for example that you sell electrical goods, and your business specialises in selling coffee machines, and one model coffee machine has been your best seller for a number of years.

However, the manufacturer is stopping making that particular model of coffee machine, so your SEO agency might recommend that instead of deleting that page, you instead redirect your customers to a new page that sells the newer model coffee machine that is made by the same manufacturer.

This could help to reduce your businesses bounce rate.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors, that is in order to improve your businesses SEO you have to have good-quality backlinks.

Notice however, how we say “good-quality backlinks”, as if your business earns low-quality backlinks then your business could possibly incur a penalty.

Good-quality backlinks can help your website to improve its SEO

Why is it important not to waste good-quality backlinks?

If you were to delete a page, you might lose all of the good quality backlinks that lead to that page.

How can backlinks help my business?

Backlinks can help a business by simply sending “link equity” through to a page, it is thought that if a lot of good quality backlinks are connected to say a homepage on a website, then this can help to improve the whole businesses SEO.

For example, let’s say that your business sells bikes in the city of Bristol, if your homepage was to have hundreds of good-quality backlinks, then this can help to improve the whole websites SEO.

As backlinks are widely considered to be one of the most important ranking factors, they can have the most dramatic effect in terms of improving a businesses SEO, that’s if they are built in a white hat way.

However as mentioned, the backlinks must be high-quality

Why is my SEO company recommending that we do not delete pages?

If you delete pages you could lose your good-quality backlinks.

Product pages

A lot of e-commerce websites stock products that go out of stock, or are no longer made by the manufacturer.

Sometimes the business will then simply delete that page, however a lot of digital marketing agencies will recommend that you do not delete a page, that you keep that page live and instead offer other products or redirect to a newer model of that product.

So, let’s say for example that your business sells “fridge freezers”, there might be one model fridge freezer which is very popular, and that page has a lot of good quality backlinks.

However, if the manufacturer was to stop making a particular fridge freezer, you might ask your SEO agency to implement a “301 redirect” through to the new fridge freezer that is made by that same manufacturer.

This can have two positive effects on your businesses SEO if carried out in a white hat way and if carried out by the respected SEO agency, that is it could possibly lower your businesses bounce rate, it could mean that backlinks are then connected to the new page via the 301 redirect.

Why it’s better to recommend other products?

It’s far better to recommend other products, then your customers to see a “404 page” as a 404 page could mean that your businesses bounce rate increases sharply.

White hat

We only recommend that you use “white hat” methods, and that use a white hat agency to implement 301 redirects.

Replacement

We would recommend that instead of deleting pages, you recommend similar products, or other services that your business can offer, this can help to reduce your businesses “bounce rate”.

How our white hat digital marketing agency can help:

We run a digital marketing agency in Bristol, our agency serves the whole of Bristol, and we also serve the city of Bath in the South-West of England as well.

If your business wishes to improve it’s organic SEO, then why not give our agency a call today?