1. Wepbage name change, or blog post slug changes
   Anytime you change the page name of a page, you should 301. This is often found rampant on WordPress blog software. The page name is too long and you want to change the Post Slug after a week or so – please 301 redirect.
2. New Web site design
   New designs often mean upgrades to directory structures and page names. 301 Redirect
3. Deletion of a web page
   Old pages expire and can sometimes hold no relation to current events, 301 redirect.
4. Search Engine Marketing Upgrades
   A big mistake often found in websites who hire outside SEO, they take in the advice, make the site changes as necessary then forget their old page links hanging out in the middle of nowhere. 301 redirect.
5. Deleting a domain you no longer want or need
   When you delete a domain name use 301 redirects to your new domain name. This is often the case for business name changes and/or merges.

Why 301 Redirect?

1. Somewhere someone might have bookmarked the page which no longer exists.
2. Search engine spiders have that web page cached and ranking somewhere
3. Content duplication issues – if you have a new website and didn’t delete your old web pages – but duplicated content on another webpage – confused yet? Duplicate content is going to be a huge part of Google’s algorithm in 2007 and beyond, handle it with 301 redirects and avoid any future issues.

How to 301 Redirect

1. Create a file and name it .htaccess
2. In the .htaccess file enter lines as follows to create a 301 redirect

   redirect 301 /page_name_to_redirect.html http://www.fullDomainname.com/new-page-name.html

   It’s that easy, save the file and upload to your top level web directory for your website and test the old page.

   Warning: Before uploading a new .htaccess file, make sure there isn’t currently one within your directory!