Tuesday, March 1, 2011

What is URL Rewrites and 301 Redirects ?


URL Rewrites

Rewriting a URL means changing the way the URL is displayed in the browser. When a user lands on a page with a rewritten URL, the code behind that page doesn't change. In fact, the server still reads the original URL.

URL Rewrite Process:

  1. User lands on new SEO'd URL
  2. Using mod_rewrite, ISAPI_Rewrite, etc. new URL points to old URL on the server
  3. Server calls the code from the old URL
  4. Page is displayed in browser, displaying the new URL

301 Redirect

Once the URL is rewritten, you want to make sure that the old URL 301 redirects to the new. This tells the search engines that any link juice the old URL had should now be given to the new URL. It also makes for a good user experience, rather than showing a 404 error page. The server is told URL A should now be URL B.

301 Redirect Process:

  1. User lands on original URL
  2. Using code, mode_rewrite, etc. the 301 redirects URL to the new one, literally changing the URL that is displayed in the browser from the old to the new
  3. URL Rewrite process begins again

For more detailed information on rewrites and redirects, check out the following sites:

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