Wordpress Redirection Plugin Review

Managing Redirects with the Redirection Plugin in Wordpress

Wordpress is the favorite CMS of millions of users because of its use and flexibility. The CMS offers thousands of plugins that can be used to extend the core functionality of the CMS.

Applying redirects can be a bit tricky in Wordpress. You need to use either a plugin or the .htaccess file if you are using apache server. With nginx server, it can be even trickier to create redirects. However, if you are using the popular redirection plugin for Wordpress, it can be quite simple to manage redirects,

Redirects can often become essential when you are migrating your website, changing domain, or when you are experiencing 404 errors that need to be redirected to relevant pages. You will need a versatile plugin that can help you manage just any type of redirect in Wordpress and is simple and lightweight. The Wordpress redirection plugin has been designed to provide simplicity and ease of use while also offering top level functionality.

You will need to manage redirects when there are several broken links on your website. Generally we use the .htaccess file to redirect urls. However, editing the .htaccess file is not always recommended and that is why you must use the Redirection plugin to create 301 and 302 redirects. Editing the .htaccess can sometimes break your website so if you decide to go the .htaccess way, you must first save a copy of the file.

The Redirection plugin makes the task of redirecting urls much easier for you. Redirects are important for website functionality and SEO. 302 redirects are used to inform search engines that a url has been permanently redirected and rather than crawling the redirected url, they must crawl and index the target url. It can be quite handy when you are migrating your domain or for managing broken or 404 links. 302 redirects with the help of Redirection plugin help transfer SEO juice from one url to another.

Suppose you changed the url structure of your website and need to bulk redirect urls. If you removed or renamed a category, in that case too you might need to create bulk redirects for SEO and user experience so users do not land on 404 pages and are instead redirected to relevant urls.

You do not need to be an experienced coder to manage redirects using the Redirection plugin since in most cases, you would just need to paste the source and target urls in relevant boxes. The plugin has a simple and easy to use interface and most things about this plugin are self explanatory.

Apart from the basic features for creating redirections, this plugin also includes some advanced features that can help you handle even the very complex redirects. It works with both Apache and Nginx servers and can automatically detect your server.

We will discuss this plugin’s features. However, first let me tell you that the best thing about this plugin is that despite its top level functionality, the plugin is absolutely free, which means it does not come with any premium version and there is no limit on how many redirects you want to create.

Wordpress Redirection Plugin Features:

Redirect Manager

The core feature of Wordpress Redirection plugin is the redirect manager that can be used to manage any type of redirect.

You do not need to be a technical expert to manage redirects. No knowledge of Apache or Nginx server is required to manage redirects with the Redirect Manager.

The plugin also offers full support for regular expressions so that you can easily create redirect patterns that can match just any number of urls you need. It is also possible to match query parameters and pass them through to the target url. So, however complex the redirect be, it is possible to create it with the help of Redirection plugin’s redirect manager.

If you need, you can configure the plugin to monitor changes in url and create automatic redirects whenever needed. Whenever a page’s permalink is changed the plugin will automatically create a redirect from the old to the new url.

Conditional Redirects

You can also create redirects with the Redirection plugin that are triggered only when certain conditions are met:

Login status: You can create redirects that will trigger based on the user’s login status. For example, you can create a redirect that will work only if the user is logged in or logged out.

Wordpress capability: Based on the user role in wordpress such as admin or subscriber, you can create redirects that will work based on the user’s capability.

Browser: You can also create redirects that will only trigger when the user is using a specific browser. Create redirects for Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox etc.

Referrer: Create redirects based on the referrer. If the user is coming from a certain source, you can redirect him to a specific page based on which website or page has referred the user.

Cookies: You can create redirects that will work only if particular cookies are set.

Http headers: Redirects can also be based on http headers.

Custom filter: You can create your own custom Wordpress filter to implement specific redirects.

IP Address: Create a redirect that works when the client ip address matches. Users from a certain IP, if needed, can be redirected to another web page.

Server: Redirect one domain to another hosted on the same server.

Page type: Redirections can also work based on page type. For example, 404 pages can be redirected to another page.

Full Logging:

The plugin offers a configurable logging option that can be used to monitor all the redirects occurring on the website as well as the related details.

Not just the redirected urls and target urls but you can also receive information regarding the browser used and the referrer from the logs. You will receive information about the visitor and the number of times a redirect was used. You can easily know how many times a redirect is being used.

Moreover, if you need you can export these logs to excel and search and filter them to conduct a detailed investigation.

You will also find full information related to the user like ip address and its geographical location, as well as full user-agent information. This allows you to understand who the user is.

However, if you need to disable the collection of ip addresses or geolocation because of legal requirements, you can reduce or completely disable it based on your need. You can reduce the collection of geographic data to bare minimum to only http headers. The redirection plugin also allows you to log all the redirects occurring on your website even if they are not enabled via the plugin. So, in this way, you will have complete access to a detailed log from which you can get detailed user information and find out if anything suspicious is happening on any particular url.

Other features

The Redirection plugin also includes features for adding http headers and tracking 404 errors. You can add http headers to the redirects or the entire site to reduce the impact of redirects or maximize security on your website.

The plugin keeps track of all the 404 errors occurring on your website so you can quickly fix any 404 error when you see one. You can also group these errors and redirect them in bulk.

The redirection plugin allows you to match query parameters, ignore them or pass them through to yoru target depending on your need.

If you have just changed your permalink structure, you can easily migrate old permalinks by simply entering the old url structure. The plugin supports multiple types of permalink redirects.

The redirection plugin offers support for both the NGINX and Apache servers. If you want in Apache the redirects will be written directly to the ,htaccess file and the server itself will handle the redirects. However, if you are using NGINX, then just export the redirects to a redirects file (Nginx rewrite rules file) so that the server can handle them.

You can also set different levels of permissions for different users. It is very helpful when you are handling client sites. You can prevent certain actions and remove certain functionalities to minimize chances of errors.

Import and Export

The plugin has an extensive import and export functionality that can be used to:

Import and export to .htaccess file on Apache server. Export rewrite rules to a rewrite rules file on the Nginx Server. You can also copy redirects from one site to another using json. If you want to view the logs in excel, you can export the redirects to a CSV and then view in the form of a spreadsheet. You can also use the wordpress command line interface (WP CLI) to carry out imports and exports. The plugin allows you to import redirects from other plugins including Simple 301 Redirects, SEO Redirection, Safe Redirect Manager, Rank Math, WordPress old slug redirects, and Quick Post/Pages redirects. The plugin is fully compatible with the Search Regex Plugin.

How to create your first redirect using Wordpress Redirection Plugin

Creating redirects using the redirection plugin in Wordpress is really very simple. Just install the Redirection Plugin and then visit the plugin settings.

To create your first Redirect using the plugin, click on the Redirects tab at the top. All your redirect settings can be managed from heer. To add a new redirect click on Add new button. You will need to specify the source and the target urls as well as the type of redirect you want to enable such as 301 redirect or 302 redirect.

Paste the source url in the box for source url and then the target url in the target url box. Now, select the type of redirect you want to enable. 301 redirects are permanent redirects whereas 302 redirects are temporary redirects.

In most cases, you will need to create a 301 redirect. So, select the 301 redirect type from the drop down menu. Save the redirect and you are done. Now, you can test the redirect by clicking on the source url and see if it redirects as expected to the target url.

Conclusion:

Redirection is one of the must use plugins for wordpress websites. It offers some important SEO benefits. The plugin tracks all the 404 errors and helps you redirect them to the relevant urls to prevent wastage of SEO juice. . It offers several benefits apart from 301 and 302 redirects. It enables you to perform complex redirects and fits the needs of both Apache server and Nginx users. The plugin comes highly recommended and is absolutely free to use. With more than 2 million active installations and 4.4 star ratings out of five, it is the most popular Wordpress Redirection management plugin. Another important thing that makes the plugin highly user friendly is its simple and easy to use interface. You have several other plugins too that can help you manage redirects but if you want all the features in one place and the ability to keep track of all 404s and redirects as well as users, you must opt for Redirection which allows you to export and filter data and analyze in the form of spreadsheets.