Introduction

When visiting your SEO agency they may have recommended that your business uses 301 redirects rather than deleting pages.

For example, let’s say that you run a business that retails electrical products online.

Let’s say for example that you retail fridge freezers, televisions and also washing machines for example.

There might be a group of washing machines that are very popular, and your business has stopped these washing machines for a long time.

This means that these pages have accrued a lot of good quality backlinks to those pages, it’s just now that the manufacturer has stopped making model washing machine, should your businesses about deleting those pages, would this be a good idea?

Well, your marketing agency might advise that you use 301 redirects

What does 301 redirects mean?

So what does 301 redirect mean, well quite simply put most web designers and also SEO businesses refer to 301 redirects as permanent redirects.

So let’s say for example that you are travelling along the road, and you are familiar with using this road because you have driven along it for a number of years.

However, you are then greeted with a diversion which lead to a long a brand-new road and the old road is now therefore redundant. This is exactly the same when it comes to a page on your website, and the web designer or the SEO business implement a 301 redirect, that’s because they will be permanently redirecting your customers to a new page.

Therefore it’s like directing traffic onto a brand-new road, that’s the say you will not use the old road they will use the new road that you have created and this is the same when your business uses a 301 redirect, you are passing the customers through to a brand-new page on your company website.

Why is my SEO company advising that we use 301 redirects?

301 redirects are often used when an agency has spent a lot of time building high-quality backlinks.

What do we mean by this, well as you will come onto later within this article, one of the most important SEO ranking factors are backlinks.

Therefore if the page has hundreds or thousands of good-quality backlinks or even just a few good quality backlinks, then your SEO agency might be reluctant to delete that page, as losing the backlinks could mean that the businesses SEO will suffer.

So what do we mean by this, well let’s say that one particular washing machine is very popular it has won a lot of awards for energy efficiency and your business has received a lot of backlinks to this particular washing machine because you are one of the biggest retailers of this model washing machine.

However the manufacturer has stopped stocking this particular washing machine, yet your digital marketing agency is advising that you do not delete that page because it has so many good quality backlinks

What are backlinks?

Backlinks are links leading to a page on your website

E-commerce businesses

for a lot of e-commerce websites, they will be selling thousands of products sometimes, therefore it is commonplace for the business to delete a page.

However if the business has a lot of backlinks the one page, then the SEO company might use 301 redirects

Offer different products

also you may advise your web designers to offer similar products when you no longer stock a product.

Now what do we mean by this, when instead of the shopper being presented with a 404 page, you could ask your web designers to use that page to promote similar products that you sell.

For example, just because that model washing machine is no longer in stock, it makes no sense to delete that page if it has a lot of good quality backlinks, instead you might just wish to use a 301 redirect through to a page which lists all the washing machines that you stock that are made by the same manufacturer

Why are 301 redirects sometimes referred to as permanent redirects

You may hear your marketing agency refer to “301 redirects” as “permanent redirects”

What does “link equity” mean?

you may have heard us within this article refer to backlinks quite a lot, that’s because backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors.

Now, what do we mean by this? Well simply put, in order to get a business onto the first page of Google your business has to have stronger ranking factors.

So for example, let’s say that you run a construction business in the city of Bristol.

To get your business onto the first page of Google, your business has to have the strongest ranking factors, for example if your business has the ninth strongest ranking factors overall, then it will rank ninth on the first page

However, backlinks are considered one of the most important SEO ranking factors, so you do not want to delete pages, for example a product page, that has good quality backlinks

Why are backlinks so important?

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors

How many ranking factors are there?

There are thought to be over 200 different ranking factors, however as most digital marketing agencies will tell you, backlinks are one of the most important.

This is why a lot of agencies here in Bristol will often use “301 redirects”, to make sure that when they deleting a page they are redirecting the backlinks to a new page on the company website.

How can your SEO agency help?

We are an SEO agency in Bath, England