There are several reasons why we might want to use URL redirection:
Similar domain names
A web browser user might mis-type a URL—for example, ‘domain.com’ and ‘domian.com’. Very often people and businesses will register these ‘mis-spelled’ domain names and re-direct them to the ‘correct’ domain name: domain.com.
In another case: the addresses domain.com and domain.org could both be redirected to a single domain, or web page, such as domain.net. This technique is often used to “reserve” other top level domains with the same name.
Moving a site to a new domain
A web page may be redirected for several reasons:
- A web site might need to change its domain name.
- An author might move his or her pages to a new domain.
- Two web sites might merge.
With URL redirects, incoming links to an outdated URL can be sent to the correct pages. These links might be from other sites that have not realized that there has been a change or from bookmarks/favorites that users have saved in their browsers.
The same applies to the search engines. They often have the older/outdated domain names and links in their database and will send search users to these old URLs. By using a ‘moved permanently’ redirect to the new domain name or URL, visitors will still end at the right place. In the next search engine crawl of the site , the search engine should detect and use the newer URL.
This video opens up the topic and shows how to set up simple URL redirects. When you have the simple stuff under your belt you can start to get really funky later on!
How to make a simple URL redirect: download video
