How to Set Up Redirections in WordPress Using Rank Math? Rank Math SEO

Key Takeaways

hello i'm kate and in this tutorial i'm going to show you how to use rank math's redirection screen to make urls switch automatically from their original destination to a new one this is an option in ranked math's advanced mode so if you can find it in the sidebar of your wordpress dashboard check if you're using the plugin in easy mode you need to switch to advanced and activate the redirections module then open the redirections section in rank math sub menu click on the button that says add new and a form will appear at the top of the list with several fields keep in mind that you'll set up one redirection for each destination url it can have as many sources as you need the first field source url is where you'll type any url you want to redirect from they can be added with the full url including the http or https prefix and domain name or the slug the part that comes after your domain name rank math will automatically remove the domain name and slashes if you place them there under that field is the option ignore case which means to make that redirection even if the text in the field has uppercase or lowercase letters different from the actual url next to each source url there is a match type field that allows you to make several redirects based on one specific term if the only option was exact match you'd have to do redirections one by one because it only works for the url with that entire slug on the other hand the contains match type will redirect all the urls with that term in them next is the start with match type that will redirect all urls that start with what's in the source url field similar to start with the end with match type will redirect all urls that end with the text in the source url field the last option is regex which stands for regular expressions they allow you to write a pattern for instance if you've used amp on your website and decided not to use it you can use regex to redirect all emp urls back to regular urls since regular expressions can match thousands of urls with a single line they can also be dangerous a mistake might match redirections that won't work or match too many urls and even hide whole sections of your website if you've never used redirections before we recommend taking a look at two links in this video's description first is a tutorial to read before starting to use regular expressions the second is an online editor to test your redirections before you use them live on your site you will also learn to use rankmath's redirection debugger to diagnose potential issues later in this video if you have to create complex redirections breaking down into simple rules with multiple source urls makes it easier to follow and diagnose any mistakes to add more sources click the add another button just below the source url field if there is a list of urls and terms to redirect to the same destination copy all of them at once and paste on the first field rank math will create fields for each one using exact as the default match type and you can change it to fit your needs you can also remove the additional fields by clicking the remove button on the right the next field destination url is for the actual content that will appear it can be a page from your website or an external url but also any kind of file pdfs images videos etc even if you're creating redirections to internal urls we recommend that you always use fully qualified domain names in the destination url field using only the slug can cause problems once the source and destination are defined it's time to select the type of redirection a 301 code means the old url has permanently moved to a new address whereas a 302 code represents a temporary redirect a 307 redirect is also temporary with a few technical differences from a 302 mainly related to caching and the request format you can use 302 and 307 almost interchangeably rank math sets 301 as a default type of redirection but you can change that in the settings to access them click on the button on the top of the screen the redirections tab of rank mouse general settings will open select the one you want to use as default we will see the rest of the settings later in the video in case there is no new content to redirect an old url to instead of a redirection code you'll need a maintenance code to tell search engines that that content was deleted or restricted when you select a maintenance code the destination url field will be hidden as there is no need to set a new target for the url rank math currently supports two maintenance codes 410 content deleted should be used if there is no suitable replacement for that content when search engines encounter 410 they also de-index the page naturally 451 content unavailable for legal reasons applies to content that has to be restricted to a demographic age group or another similar restriction for instance most regions don't allow minors to access gambling websites if that was your case you would use a 451 to restrict content to the people below the mandatory age the last in the redirections options that all rank math users can see is the status field which represents whether the redirect is active or not it can be used for both creating redirects in advanced and enabling them later or creating temporary redirects you can enable or disable a redirection in two ways changing the status in the editor or using the activate deactivate link from the all redirections page you can see that when a redirect is disabled it will appear washed out on the page rank math pro users have another option on this screen redirection category you can add new categories right on the form and edit them by clicking on manage categories it's also possible to add in bulks from the redirections list once you've created the categories you can filter which ones you want to see on the list use the drop down menu select category choose one and click on filter only the redirects within that particular category will appear and you can make changes such as activating deactivating or sending them to the trash even if you don't filter them through categories you can still apply those bulk actions to several redirects at once rank math tracks how many times each redirection has been accessed both by humans and bots even if the link takes visitors to another site you can see the redirection statistics in the last two columns of the redirections screen hits gives you the total number of times the redirect has been accessed since you set it up while less accessed shows you the most recent time someone clicked on the redirect you can backup your redirections or replicate them in another site with the export option all ranked math users can export the redirects to the htaccess file used in apache servers or to engine x servers configuration files rank math pro users will see an import and export button where there will be an additional option to import and export the redirections as a csv file this feature lets you make changes in bulk with the help of external editors no matter the file's format its name has a timestamp to make it easier to identify but you can change it to whatever you prefer now let's dive into the redirection settings the first is the redirections debugger this is useful to keep track of what each redirect is doing and solve problems like having two redirects for the same url or if you create a regex based rule that causes a large number of unintentional redirects if it's activated whenever you click on a redirection an interstitial page with the first rule will appear for 5 seconds then the destination url will open if the interstitial doesn't appear even while the debugger is active that means the redirect isn't being processed you'll have to edit its rules don't worry about visitors seeing the debugger in action as it is only visible for website administrators the following option fallback behavior defines what happens when the destination url in a redirect isn't found you can set it to a 404 redirect the home page or redirect to a custom url if you select the custom url option another field opens up to enter the fallback url on the third setting you define the default type for redirections that will appear selected as you create a new one the last feature makes redirections happen automatically when you make a change in a posts url wordpress already does that by default but if it doesn't for some reason you can activate auto post redirect if this tutorial helped you give it a like if you have any questions click on the link in the description to open a free support ticket you can find other tutorials in our knowledge base at rankmath.com kb