Performing Squarespace 301 Redirects for SEO Success
We've all had to change the structure of our websites from time to time. Our domain name changes, we add/remove things from the blog URL structure (e.g., the month/day) and we move around pages per the new plan. But if search engine traffic is important to you, you'll want to know about an important SEO tool used when content moves on your Squarespace site. You'll want to know about the 301 redirect.
What is a 301 Redirect?
If you've ever moved houses, you may have went through the effort to fill out a Change of Address form with the United States Postal Service. The post office had an updated record of where you lived and was therefore able to send your mail to your new address instead of your old one. The Change of Address form is like a 301 redirect.
When you move content around on your website, your content is changing addresses on the web. A 301 redirect provides a map from your old URLs to your new ones. When someone tries to visit a web page that has been 301 redirected, they are automatically taken to the new page.
Why Should I 301 Redirect for SEO?
When people link to your web pages, you're building SEO equity for that page and your website as a whole. The more links you have to your site, the more likely you are to rank for key search phrases. 301 redirects are the only way to retain SEO equity when URLs change on your website. If you think someone may have linked to a page you plan on moving, perform a 301 redirect.
Performing a 301 Redirect in Squarespace
Squarespace makes it pretty easy to create a 301 redirect. In fact, they automatically redirect your old content to your new Squarespace site if you use their blog importer. And for those redirects that you'd like to create manually, they provide an easy 301 redirect utility. Let's take a look.
To use the Squarespace 301 redirect tool, select the URL Shortcuts link from the Website Management menu.
Enter your old URL into the shortcut URL field and the new URL into the existing URL field. Select 301 Redirect from as the navigation method and then select Update information.
That's all there is to it. When someone tries to visit your old URL, they will be automatically redirected to your new URL. And the SEO equity you've built to your old page will pass through to your new page as well.
The scenarios for 301 redirects are endless. Moving web pages, changing publish dates of blog posts with dates in the URLs, changing blog URL structure to no longer contain dates at all... these are all great times to use a 301 redirect in Squarespace.
What questions do you have about 301 redirects? Be sure to leave your thoughts and questions on 301 redirects in Squarespace in the comments section below.
Did you like this blog post?
Let's Connect:
Subscribe:
squarespace in Blogging Strategy, SEO 
Reader Comments (4)
I've noticed that Feedburner does some basic redirecting if you move posts on your site. I suppose the only negitive to this is having to use Feedburner for your blogs RSS feed.
How do you know you need to use 301 redirects? I am just wondering I run a mobile tech blog called mobilenewsnow.net.
You should redirect a URL if there are currently links that are pointing to it on the web. You can use a free tool like Yahoo Site Explorer to find the links pointing to your site and its pages.
If you find a page is getting links from other pages on the web, redirect it so you can preserve most of the SEO benefit associated with the page that's moving.
The squarespace URL Shortcuts functionality works to redirect pages only from within your current URL. However, if you move your site to squarespace and use a different domain it doesn't work.
For example, if your site was www.example.com and when you move it into squarespace you decide to change it to www.example2000.com it seems you can't do 301 redirect for individual pages from the old to the new URL.
I assume it's similar if you move from a Blogger or Wordpress domains (ie. example.blogspot.com or example.worpress.com) and buy www.example.com.
Or do you know of a way of doing this?