Every website owner eventually needs to update a page’s URL, remove an outdated post, or transfer their site to a new domain. This is a standard aspect of website management.
However, these changes can lead to broken links, resulting in 404 errors that can frustrate visitors and negatively impact your site’s SEO. It’s understandable to be concerned about the potential loss of traffic that you’ve worked hard to achieve.
The good news is that there are simple solutions available. In this article, we will highlight the top WordPress redirect plugins that can help you manage these changes effectively.
Whether you operate a small blog or a large website, these tools can assist you in fixing broken links and safeguarding your SEO without the need for any coding.
Quick Overview: Top WordPress Redirect Plugins
In a hurry? No problem! Here’s a quick summary of the leading WordPress redirect plugins.
| # | Tool | Best For | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | All in One SEO for WordPress | Comprehensive SEO management and redirect features | Starting at $174.65 per year |
| 🥈 | SeedProd | Creating custom 404 landing pages | Starting at $39.50 per year |
| 🥉 | Pretty Links | Managing affiliate links with Amazon Affiliates support | Free / Starting at $99 per year |
| 🎖️ | ThirstyAffiliates | Manage affiliate links effectively, including support for Amazon Affiliates | Free / Starting at $49 per year |
| 🏅 | Redirection | Easy and free URL redirection | Free |
What Are Redirects in WordPress?
Redirects enable you to direct users to a different URL than the one they initially clicked.
Typically, if you delete a post or page in WordPress or alter its URL, the old URL will display a 404 error page.
Search engines will be unable to locate it, resulting in lost traffic and a decline in SEO rankings for that page.
Redirects help you resolve this issue by directing users to new or related content on your site, allowing you to maintain SEO while enhancing user experience.
You may also require redirects if you transfer your WordPress site to a new domain.
Why Should You Set Up Redirects in WordPress?
Redirects lead visitors from outdated, broken, or modified articles to new, relevant content. Here are some key reasons why redirects are essential.
1. Maintaining Your SEO Value
If a page is deleted or relocated to a different URL, search engines cannot find it. Redirects inform them, ‘The content is now located here!’ This helps to retain your WordPress SEO and traffic.
2. Improving User Experience:
Imagine clicking a link only to encounter a 404 error page. This can be incredibly frustrating for users. Redirects help you avoid this issue by ensuring your users can always find the content they seek.
3. Managing Affiliate Links
Many websites generate income by recommending products to their audience. They earn a commission when users purchase a product through their links. Redirect plugins enable you to create custom short URLs or branded links for these products, ensuring users are directed to the correct page.
4. Preserving Social Media Shares:
Have you ever shared a post on social media only to later change its URL? Redirects ensure that anyone clicking the shared link is taken to the updated page, not an error. This helps maintain your social media visibility and keeps potential visitors from leaving due to broken links.
Essentially, it’s like keeping a map current. It ensures that both search engines and visitors can navigate your website smoothly.
What Are the Different Types of Redirects?
There are various types of redirects you can implement, each with distinct implications for search engines.
Your WordPress website sends the appropriate header code when a page is requested.
This code, typically hidden from users, informs search engines and browsers about the type of redirect being implemented.
The most common redirect types used by WordPress sites include 301 Redirects (Permanent Redirects), 302 Redirects (Temporary Redirects), and 304 Redirects (Cached Not-Modified Redirects).
Fortunately, there are outstanding WordPress plugins that simplify the process of setting up these redirects.
Now, let’s explore the top redirect plugins for WordPress that you can utilize.
Our Methodology for Testing and Reviewing WordPress Redirect Plugins
At CanadaCreate, our recommendations are based on extensive real-world testing. To identify the best redirect plugins, our review team concentrated on several important factors:
- ⚙️ User-Friendliness & Setup:We focused on plugins with user-friendly interfaces that make creating and managing redirects straightforward for everyone, not just developers. We sought clear processes and useful documentation.
- 🚀 Features & Functionality:Our evaluation extended beyond basic redirects. We assessed advanced features such as 404 error monitoring, full-site redirect capabilities, affiliate link management tools, and support for regular expressions (regex).
- ⚡ Impact on Performance:A reliable redirect plugin should enhance your website’s performance without causing slowdowns. We tested each plugin on our sites to ensure they are lightweight and efficient, safeguarding both your SEO and user experience.
After installing and using these plugins on both our staging and live sites, we confidently endorse tools that are dependable, powerful, and user-friendly.
Why You Can Trust CanadaCreate
Established by Syed Balkhi in 2009, CanadaCreate is the premier and largest free resource for WordPress beginners. Our expert team has guided millions of readers through the challenges of building and expanding their websites.
Unlike other review platforms, we possess extensive hands-on experience. We manage a significant portfolio of high-traffic websites, ensuring our recommendations are based on real-world usage of these tools to address genuine business needs.
Every plugin featured on this list has been meticulously installed and evaluated by our experts. For more details, check out the comprehensive editorial process we adhere to for all our reviews.
1. All in One SEO for WordPress
Ideal for:Comprehensive SEO and redirect management
We utilize All in One SEO for WordPress across all our websites to manage redirects effectively. It has proven to be extremely helpful in identifying 404 errors, establishing redirects, and overseeing them. For further information, check out our detailed review of All in One SEO.
It includes a robust Redirection Manager tool that assists you in locating 404 errors on your site, monitoring broken links, and swiftly implementing 301 redirects.
We discovered that All in One SEO offers the simplest method for setting up redirects. Just input the outdated URL in the Source field, and then enter the new URL in the Target field.
The plugin also supports full site redirects, which is essential when transitioning your site to a new domain, consolidating websites, or moving a subdomain to the main domain.
All in One SEO allows for fast server redirects, enables tracking and monitoring of redirects, and even lets you set up automatic redirects.
If you’re using multiple domains to promote your website, All in One SEO’s Site Alias feature makes it easy to redirect users from your Alias domain to the appropriate URL on your primary domain.
Additionally, you gain all the advantages of using All in One SEO. It is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit available for WordPress, helping you enhance your site’s SEO without overspending.
Advantages:
- All-in-one SEO toolkit
- Simple setup for redirects
- Site-wide redirects for website migrations
Drawbacks:
- Requires a Pro subscription
Reasons to Choose All in One SEO for WordPress:This plugin delivers a comprehensive SEO toolkit with powerful redirect capabilities, making it perfect for users seeking an all-in-one solution.
Pricing Information:The Redirection Manager is part of the PRO plan for All in One SEO, priced at $174.65 per year. This plan covers ten websites and includes priority support.
2. SeedProd
Ideal for:Creating custom, high-converting 404 error pages
We utilize SeedProd to guide users to personalized 404 error pages across multiple websites. It has proven to be extremely effective in crafting visually appealing 404 pages that improve user experience.
SeedProd is a versatile page builder plugin that enables you to design custom landing pages, create complete themes, develop login pages, and set up redirects to your tailored 404 pages. For further information, check out our SeedProd review.
While it may lack extensive redirection options, it excels at allowing you to design attractive 404 pages for your site.
Typically, 404 error pages in WordPress are quite basic and not very user-friendly.
With SeedProd’s intuitive drag-and-drop page builder, you can design a custom 404 page that enhances user experience.
For example, you can showcase your most popular articles, highlight top-selling products, add a contact form, or encourage users to subscribe to your newsletter.
Advantages:
- Ideal for designing personalized 404 pages
- User-friendly drag-and-drop page builder
- Highlights best-selling products on 404 pages
Disadvantages:
- Includes only basic redirection functionalities
- More focused on page design than redirection
Why We Recommend SeedProd:SeedProd is exceptional for crafting custom 404 pages and is ideal for users aiming to improve their website’s aesthetics and user engagement.
Pricing:Starting at $39.50 per year, with a free version of SeedProd available for trial.
3. Pretty Links
Best for:Shortening and cloaking branded affiliate links
We utilize Pretty Links across multiple websites to establish affiliate links and redirect users effortlessly. In our experience, it is the simplest method for redirecting users to affiliate links. For more details, check out our Pretty Links review.
It stands out as one of the top affiliate link management plugins for WordPress, enabling easy redirection to affiliate products and landing pages.
When you add an affiliate link to your WordPress posts and pages, it usually works seamlessly. However, if the URL of a product you are promoting changes, you’ll need to manually update all those pages to reflect the new URL.
Using an affiliate link in this manner also transfers some of your site’s SEO authority to the linked website.
Pretty Links addresses this issue by enabling you to redirect users effectively. It also allows you to create your own branded links (cloaked links).
You can select the type of redirection and organize your links into categories and tags.
If you frequently use a particular link, Pretty Links lets you set up automatic link insertion for designated keywords.
Advantages:
- Excellent for managing affiliate links efficiently
- Cloaked and branded links for better visibility
- Automatic link insertion for convenience
Disadvantages:
- Slightly higher cost
- May have a learning curve for beginners
Reasons to Choose Pretty Links:Pretty Links is perfect for affiliate marketers, offering robust link management and tracking features.
Pricing Information:Starting at $99.60 per year.
4. ThirstyAffiliates
Ideal for:Advanced tools tailored for dedicated affiliate marketers.
At CanadaCreate, we utilize ThirstyAffiliates to effectively manage our affiliate links. After years of use, we can confidently say it is both reliable and efficient. Check out our detailed review of ThirstyAffiliates for more insights.
ThirstyAffiliates stands out as one of the top affiliate marketing tools we’ve encountered. Its user-friendly interface makes setting up affiliate link redirects a breeze.
This plugin enables you to cloak your affiliate links with your own branded URLs. You can easily configure proper redirects using the appropriate redirection codes for your affiliate links.
ThirstyAffiliates simplifies link management by allowing you to organize all your links from a single dashboard. You can categorize and tag your links, and even use automatic insertion for your frequently used links.
The plugin also keeps track of link health by monitoring for 404 errors. If you include Amazon links on your site, ThirstyAffiliates can automatically uncloak those links to ensure compliance with Amazon’s policies.
Both ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links are excellent affiliate plugins, each with slight differences. For a deeper understanding, check out our comparison of Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates.
Advantages:
- Ideal for managing affiliate links
- Monitors the health of your links
- Ensures compliance with Amazon link policies
Disadvantages:
- Similar to Pretty Links
- Requires setup for best performance
Reasons to Choose ThirstyAffiliates:ThirstyAffiliates is specifically designed for affiliate marketers, offering robust tools to effectively manage and track affiliate links.
Pricing: Starting at $99.60 per year.
5. Redirection
Ideal for:Powerful and completely free redirect options
If you’re seeking a straightforward and free redirect plugin, we recommend Redirection. This popular WordPress plugin allows you to effortlessly set up website redirects.
We appreciate its user-friendly interface for adding new redirects. Simply input the Source (old URL) and Target (new URL).
You can also select the type of redirection, categorize different links, and monitor 404 errors.
Additionally, it maintains a log of all redirected links to help you identify which links are redirected most frequently.
Redirection can also facilitate moving a site to a new domain name, utilizing domain aliases, and more.
Advantages:
- The free version is highly functional
- Records all redirected links
- Supports domain aliases
Disadvantages:
- Limited to basic functionalities
- This plugin may not be ideal for larger websites.
Reasons to Choose Redirection:Redirection is a dependable and free solution for basic redirect requirements, making it perfect for small to medium-sized websites.
Cost: Free of charge
6. Simple 301 Redirects
Ideal for:Beginners looking for quick and straightforward 301 redirects.
As the name implies, Simple 301 Redirects is an intuitive WordPress plugin designed for easy redirection.
The plugin exclusively supports 301 redirects and features a user-friendly interface where you can input the source and destination URLs.
Additionally, you can utilize wildcards to match URLs using Regex. The plugin also supports updating URLs and importing/exporting redirect rules.
Advantages:
- Extremely user-friendly
- Completely free
- Includes Regex support for URL matching
Disadvantages:
- Restricted to 301 redirects only
- Basic user interface
Reasons to Choose Simple 301 Redirects:This plugin is perfect for uncomplicated 301 redirects, providing simplicity and effectiveness at no cost.
Cost: Free of charge
7. Rank Math
Ideal for:Users who are already utilizing the Rank Math plugin for SEO.
Rank Math is a powerful SEO plugin for WordPress that includes a built-in Redirection feature.
This plugin makes it easy to set up redirects on your WordPress site. You can select a redirection code, categorize your redirects, and even import or export them as needed.
The redirect manager in Rank Math also enables you to monitor 404 errors on your WordPress site, although you will need to manually create redirects for those errors.
Additionally, the plugin allows you to schedule redirects and perform bulk edits.
Advantages:
- All-in-one SEO plugin
- Monitors 404 errors
- Enables bulk editing
Disadvantages:
- Manual setup required for 404 errors
- Paid plans begin at $69 per year
Why We Recommend Rank Math:Rank Math integrates both SEO and redirection functionalities in a single plugin, making it perfect for users seeking a comprehensive solution.
Pricing:Starts at $69.00 per year
8. 404 to 301
Ideal for:A straightforward, temporary solution for all 404 errors
404 to 301 is a user-friendly redirect plugin for WordPress that allows you to redirect 404 errors to any page on your site.
This feature ensures that when users click on a broken or outdated link, they are redirected to a page of your choice instead of encountering a 404 error page.
This method is generally not advisable, as it directs all users to the same page, which may not align with their expectations.
Nonetheless, it can serve as a temporary fix if you’re experiencing numerous 404 errors and require additional time to implement redirects with a different plugin.
Advantages:
- Redirects 404 errors to any selected page
- User-friendly interface
- Free of charge
Disadvantages:
- Not suitable for every scenario
- Limited options for redirection
Reasons to Choose 404 to 301:This plugin is ideal for users seeking a straightforward way to manage 404 errors by redirecting visitors to relevant pages.
Cost: Free
9. 301 Redirects
Ideal for:Effortless redirect management with 404 error tracking
301 Redirects is a user-friendly yet robust WordPress redirect management plugin.
The plugin features an intuitive interface that allows you to easily add redirects and select the type of redirection.
In addition to creating redirects, this plugin monitors and records 404 errors on your WordPress site. You can easily set up redirects for those 404 pages as needed.
Advantages:
- User-friendly and efficient
- Monitors and records 404 errors
- Free core plugin
Disadvantages:
- Premium plans are necessary for advanced features
- Basic user interface
Reasons to Choose 301 Redirects:301 Redirects is a simple plugin that efficiently handles redirects, ideal for users seeking an easy-to-use solution.
Pricing:The core plugin is free, with premium plans starting at $49 per year.
What is the Best Redirect Plugin for WordPress?
All in One SEO for WordPress is the top redirect plugin available. Its Redirection Manager is the most comprehensive option compared to other redirect plugins.
It is extremely user-friendly for beginners while also offering powerful features for advanced users. Whether you’re migrating your entire site or fixing broken links, All in One SEO for WordPress simplifies the redirect process.
The plugin allows you to toggle between WordPress rewrites and server-based redirects. Server-based redirects are faster and enhance the performance and speed of your WordPress site.
We hope this article has helped you evaluate the top WordPress redirect plugins. You might also be interested in our selection of the best internal linking plugins for WordPress or the most effective content optimization tools for WordPress.
Common Questions About WordPress Redirects
We understand that redirects can raise many questions, particularly regarding SEO and website performance. To assist you, we’ve gathered answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from our readers.
What is a 301 redirect in WordPress?
A 301 redirect is a permanent method for directing visitors and search engines from one URL to another. It is the most widely used redirect for SEO purposes and content updates.
Do redirects impact my SEO?
Yes, they do. When implemented correctly, redirects can help maintain your SEO rankings by directing search engines to the new content instead of displaying a 404 error.
Can I create redirects without using a plugin?
Yes, but it involves modifying your site’s .htaccess file or server configuration, which can be risky if you’re not experienced with coding. Using plugins provides a safer and more user-friendly method for managing redirects.
How can I determine if I need a redirect?
When you delete a post, change a URL, or move your website to a new domain, it’s essential to set up a redirect. This ensures that both users and search engines can easily locate the correct content.
What are the consequences of not using redirects?
Users may encounter 404 error pages, resulting in lost traffic and decreased SEO rankings. Implementing redirects prevents this issue by directing users to the appropriate page.
Additional Resources on Redirects and 404 Errors
If you’re new to redirects or want to avoid common pitfalls that can negatively impact your SEO, these beginner-friendly tutorials will walk you through the process. We’ve curated some of our most valuable articles to assist you in managing 404 errors, understanding different types of redirects, and ensuring a positive experience for your visitors.
- How to Redirect a Page or URL in WordPress
- Understanding the Differences Between 302 and 301 Redirects – Best Practices Explained
- How to Enhance Your 404 Page Template in WordPress
- How to Receive Email Notifications for 404 Errors in WordPress
- How to Perform a Full Site Redirect in WordPress – A Beginner’s Guide
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