How to Use Safe Redirect Manager to Redirect URLs in WordPress

By Cliff Seal | December 23, 2015

image04Have you ever been browsing the internet and received a 404 error?

In this tutorial, you’ll learn why you received that error and how to ensure visitors to your website never receive that error.

A 404 error simply means that the page once existed, but now the URL is different or the page or post doesn’t exist at all.

Examples that could create this situation include:

  • Deletion of an old blog post or page
  • Someone updated the URL, but the old one is still known by search engines or stored by site users for future use
  • Retirement of a product
  • Launch of a new website with different URLs

There are a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is that 404 errors create a poor user experience for your site’s visitors and also negatively impact your search engine rankings for that page and its keywords.

You can avoid this negative experience by employing a redirect tool. It’s simple to use and once the rules are set, you never have to worry about them again.

Using Safe Redirect Manager

Step 1: Activate Safe Redirect Manager

Navigate to Plugins in your admin area and ensure Safe Redirect Manager is activated.

(For non-Evermore users: you’ll want to follow the installation instructions instead.)

Step 2: Open Safe Redirect Manager

Navigate to Tools > Safe Redirect Manager. You’ll then see a screen that looks like this:

Safe Redirect Manager - Nothing set up yet.

Note that there are no redirects set up yet.

For comparison, here is a screenshot of a site with already redirects in place, along with key elements.

Safe Redirect Manager - Full of redirects.

Notice that there is a Redirect From (old URL), a Redirect To (new URL), and a HTTP Status Code. This means that if someone goes to the old URL, they are automatically redirected to the new URL. The HTTP Status Code of 301 lets search engines know that this is a permanent redirect.

Step 3: Add Redirects

At the top of the redirect page, select Create Redirect Rule.

Safe Redirect Manager - Create Redirect Rule

You’ll see a page that looks like this:

Safe Redirect Manager - Adding a redirect

Copy and paste the old URL into the “Redirect From” section. Ignore “Enable Regular Expressions” if you don’t know what this is.

Next, copy and paste the new URL into the “Redirect To” section.

You’re then asked to select an HTTP Status Code. There are six options:

  • 301 Moved Permanently
  • 302 Found
  • 303 See other
  • 307 Temporary Redirect
  • 403 Forbidden
  • 404 Not Found

Choose the one that best suits you. If you’re unsure, leave it as “301 Moved Permanently”.

Step 4: Publish

Once you have this information filled out, remember to select Publish.

Safe Redirect Manager - Publishing redirects

Step 5: Test

Now that you’ve done your first redirect, test to make sure it is working by opening up your internet browser and entering in the old URL to ensure your browser automatically opens up the new URL. If so, congratulations, you’re done and ready to add the rest of the redirects.