How to redirect your deleted Squarespace pages to keep your SEO rankings
For years after I moved into my house, I received the last owner’s mail. I sent so many pieces back return to sender without knowing if any of them were important. Who knows what they missed out on?
All of this could have been fixed by simply filling out a little card at the post office, redirecting their mail.
When you move or delete a page on your website, the situation is similar. Instead of a return to sender, your visitor gets sent to a 404 error page, which may make them leave your site, resulting in a higher bounce rate. So, you miss out on a visitor to your website.
Also, having a lot of broken links that lead to 404 pages makes your website seem less trustworthy.
Because of typing errors and external links to your site, there’s no way to completely avoid having pages lead to a 404. So, it’s a great idea to create a custom error page that encourages visitors to move on to your site.
It is important to know that you can fix the broken links on your website. First, check out your site’s links on a free website like Broken Link Checker and fix any broken links that it finds.
And, if you are moving or deleting any pages, set up a 301 redirect.
What is a 301 redirect?
Just like filling out the form at the post office tells the postal service that you have moved addresses and where to send mail, a 301 redirect is a way of telling browsers that your page has moved permanently.
The 301 redirect will now automatically take your visitors to the new page instead of the deleted one. This way, your visitors don’t end up on an error page.
It works pretty much the same way for search engines too, sending the search engine to the new page.
Over time search engines like Google will update the page in their index. It will also pass on the ranking and trust of the old page.
So, it’s good for user experience and good for SEO.
When Should You Use a 301 Redirect?
There are number of reasons you might want to use a 301 redirect, such as:
You need to delete a page.
You merge 2 or more pages where the content overlaps to create a single page that more completely covers the topic
You change a URL or page name to create a more accurate name or more optimized for SEO.
Example: https://www.website.com/old-page/ to https://www.website.com/new-page/
You change the name of a collection.
Example: /blog becomes /articles.
302 Redirect - Temporarily Moved
Another type of redirect you may need is the 302 redirect. This is used when the move is temporary. For instance, you’re doing some maintenance to your website. It’s important that you don’t use a 302 when you are moving your page permanently as this sends the message to the search engines that the move is temporary, so they don’t pass any ranking or authority to your new page.
How to redirect a page on Squarespace
Redirect one page
1. From the Home panel choose Settings
2. Click on Developer Tools
3. Click URL Mappings
4. Click into the text field and add your redirects.
The redirect format should look like this:
/old-url -> /new-url 301
The old URL for the page that doesn't exist.
The "arrow", which is a dash immediately followed by a greater than sign (->).
The new URL for the page you want to redirect to.
The redirect type (301 or 302).
5. Click Save
Redirect a collection
To redirect all the pages in a collection, such as all blog posts, events, or products, add [name] to the redirect addresses in the text field.
The format would look like this:
/blog/[name] -> /articles/[name] 301
In this case, you are changing the old name of the collection (blog) to the new name (articles), but keeping each blog post name the same.
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