Content
Move a page without breaking its links
Never change a slug. Create the new address, then redirect the old one to it. The slug is the address, and an address people already have is worth more than a tidy name.
Settings, then Redirects. Each rule is a pair: the address people arrive at, and the address they should end up at.
Add a redirect
1
Settings, then Redirects.
2
Add a rule. Put the old address in the from field and the new one in the to field.
3
Save, build a preview, and follow the old address to confirm it lands on the new page.
The two warnings, and what they mean
The Console checks your rules against each other and says something when they conflict. Both messages are worth understanding, because both describe a rule that silently does nothing.
"An earlier rule already redirects this address, so this one never runs." Two rules claim the same starting address. The first one wins and the second is dead. Delete the dead one rather than leaving it to confuse the next person.
"The address this points at is redirected again. Point it at the final address." You have built a chain: A goes to B, and B goes to C. Chains cost a round trip for every visitor, and search engines pass less value along each hop. Point A straight at C.
When a redirect is the right answer
•
A page moved to a new address.
•
Two pages said the same thing and you merged them.
•
You retired a page and something else covers the subject.
•
A common misspelling of an address is worth catching.
When it is not
Do not redirect a page to the home page because you deleted it. A visitor who clicked a specific link and landed on your home page has been told nothing. A 404 is more honest, and a redirect to the nearest genuinely relevant page is better than both.
Do not use a redirect instead of fixing a link on your own site. Redirects are for links you cannot edit, which means other people's. Links inside your own pages should point at the final address directly.
Checking
After the build, follow each old address and watch where it lands. A web audit reports redirect chains as findings, which is the fastest way to catch one you introduced months ago and forgot.
Next
Add a page and give it an address
Creating a page is two jobs. Skip the second and the page has no address.
Control how your site describes itself
What search engines read from your site, and which fields change a result.
Choose the address your site lives at
What the domain field accepts, and what happens if you already own it.
Still stuck?
Send us the site name and what you were trying to do. A person answers, usually within one business day.