Creating 301 & 302 Redirects in WordPress

To help you set up redirects for your WordPress error pages, our SEO plugin BAVOKO SEO Tools includes a number of utilities that allow you to easily and quickly analyze your active redirects and set new 301 or 302 redirects.

What are 301 & 302 Redirects?

Redirects are generally used to tell your users’ browser as quickly as possible, that the site they are about to visit has been moved and where they can find the new page.

Among the various redirect types available, BAVOKO SEO Tools is limited to the two most used ones – 301 and 302 redirects.

The codes 301 and 302 for your WordPress redirects mean the following:

301 – Permanent Redirect: Search engine friendly redirect. The search engine is informed, that the page has been moved permanently. As a result, the linkjuice of the site is also passed on.

302 – Temporary Redirect: Redirect is not permanent. This comes in handy if, for example, the maintenance mode is active on a specific site and you want users to be redirected to a “sorry page”. The linkjuice is not passed on in this case.

Since the permanent 301 redirects in WordPress are of interest for search engine optimization, the following article will not go into the temporary 302 redirects in more detail.

When should I use 301 Redirects in WordPress?

The purpose of a WordPress 301 redirect is to transfer visitors of a deleted or moved page directly to the new one.

So if you plan to move or even delete a page, you should definitely set up a 301 redirect to the new page. The same applies to changes to the permalinks of the single posts and pages.

Otherwise, your users will only see a 404 error page instead of your content. And such error pages are not only disappointing for your users: Your WordPress SEO can also be affected by error pages and endanger your SEO rankings by lower search engine ratings!

In order to avoid such error pages directly and at the same time even support your WordPress SEO, you can create 301 redirects with BAVOKO SEO Tools with just a few clicks, which will inform the search engines that the new page will be permanently available at the new address. In this way, both the traffic and the linkjuice of the old page is transferred to the new page.

Create 301 & 302 Redirects in WordPress
with the Redirect Manager

If you want to create redirects in the BST WordPress plugin, proceed as follows:

• Click on “Redirect Manager” in the “Tools” section.



• In the upper part of “Add custom redirect” under both “Redirect from” and “Redirect to” you have the option of selecting whether you want to redirect an exact URL or even entire directories.

Redirecting single Pages (exact)

• Select “Exact match” if you want to redirect a single URL to another URL.
• Then enter the desired URLs in the text fields next to “Redirect from” and “Redirect to”.
• Within “Redirect Type”, select whether the URL should be redirected via 301 or 302.
• Click on “Add Redirect” to set up your desired redirect(s).

Info: Since a single page cannot be forwarded to several pages, only the “Exact match” option is available when entering the target URL.

Redirecting Directories (contains)

For example, if you want to forward your old shop URL /products/ to the new /shop/, you can do this in the Redirect Manager as follows:

• First select “Contains” to forward entire directories.
• Within “Redirect from” enter “/products/” and under “Redirect to” enter “/shop/”
• Under “Redirect Type” select whether the URL should be forwarded via 301 or 302.
• Click on “Add Redirect” to set up your desired redirects(s).

Info: By the way, you also have the option to forward your directory to a single target URL with the option “Exact match”.

Further down in the Redirect Manager in the “Current Redirects” section you can always keep an eye on your “Custom Redirects”, which you have created using the Redirect Manager or the Content Optimizer.

Automatic Redirects within the Permalinks Section

It often happens that the URLs of single pages or entire directories change, which is why you should never forget to forward them afterwards. In the BAVOKO SEO Tools Permalink settings you can set up automatic 301 redirects for URLs.

Automatic Redirect of 404 Pages

Within “Tools” > “Permalinks” click on the tab “404 to 301 Settings”. Here you have the possibility to redirect 404 pages automatically to the homepage, to an individual page, or to the parent directory.

Automatic Redirect when the category base is changed

In the permalink settings, you also have the option of hiding the category base of your WordPress page in the URLs and to automatically redirect the old pages by activating “Redirect old category links”.

Automatic Redirect of Posts & Pages when URLs are changed

It is not uncommon to edit the slug of a post while making changes or optimizations to a page. By activating “Auto Post Redirect” within “Permalinks”, BAVOKO SEO Tools automatically redirects the old page to the new one when the URL changes. In the “Advanced” tab of our Content Optimizer you can always see how often the URL of the respective page has been changed and redirected.

301 Redirects in the Content Optimizer

During the SEO optimization of single posts and pages, you can also set up a 301 redirect for the respective page using the Content Optimizer.

• To do so, navigate to the tab “Advanced” in the Content Optimizer.
• In the upper area next to “Redirect To” you will find a checkbox which you can tick to activate a redirect for this WordPress page.
• Enter the URL of the new page to which the WordPress redirect should transfer your users.
• From the dropdown menu, select whether you want to create a 301 or 302 redirect
• BAVOKO SEO Tools applies your settings automatically as soon as click the “save” button.

Indexability – Analyzing Redirects, Error Pages & More

With the indexability analysis in the “Onpage” section of BAVOKO SEO Tools you can check the status codes of your individual pages and, for example, filter error pages or redirects with just one click. Find your problem pages without much effort to make both your users and Google happy.

Easy Creation and Analysis of 301 & 302 Redirects
in WordPress with BAVOKO SEO Tools

Since error pages are not well received by both your users and search engines and can even endanger your rankings, BAVOKO SEO Tools gives you an easy way to create 301 and 302 redirects in WordPress and thereby helps you avoiding error pages.