How to create a 301 redirect in wordpress Egypt edition

Here if you have a wordpress website and you wanna redirect one page to another page without losing seo or making your visitors get lost then you need to use a 301 redirect and dont worry i will explain everything in very easy steps no need to be tech genius i promise even if you are beginner from cairo alexandria or anywhere in egypt this will help you a lot. And if you’re looking for expert advice, you can always consult an SEO company in Egypt to ensure your website is optimized properly.

what is 301 redirect and why it matters

so first thing first what even is a 301 redirect let me tell you in simple words

a 301 redirect is like when you move from one house to another and you tell your friends hey i moved here is my new address so they dont go to the old one

same with websites when you change the url of a page or delete it or move it to a new location you gotta tell google and users hey this page moved go here instead

301 means its permanent like forever not just temporary and its important for seo because it tells search engines to transfer all the page power to the new one so you dont lose rankings or traffic

when to use 301 redirect

ok so here are times when you need to use 301 redirect on your wordpress site

you changed the url of a post or page maybe you added keywords or fixed spelling
you deleted a page and wanna send users to another page instead
you merged two pages into one and wanna keep the traffic from both
you moved your site to a new domain and wanna keep your google ranking
you changed the structure like from /blog/post-name to /post-name

example from egypt

let’s say you had a page like www.yoursite.com/ahwa-alqahira and you changed it to www.yoursite.com/ahwa-cairo so egyptian visitors can find it easier you need to redirect the old one to the new one using 301 redirect

how to create 301 redirect in wordpress without plugins

there are many ways but i will show you the easiest one first without using any plugins but you need to be careful here because it involves editing a file on your site

method 1 – using .htaccess file

this is for people who use apache server which is most common in egypt hosting providers like godaddy egynic or others

1 login to your hosting cpanel
2 go to file manager
3 open public_html folder or your site folder
4 find the file called .htaccess
5 right click and choose edit
6 at the bottom of the file add this code

Redirect 301 /old-page-url /new-page-url

example

Redirect 301 /ahwa-alqahira https://www.yoursite.com/ahwa-cairo

save the file and thats it

warning

make sure you add the right url and do not delete any other codes in the .htaccess file or your site may break

how to create 301 redirect using plugins in wordpress

if you dont wanna deal with code and stuff or if you are scared to break your site then plugins is best and safest way and here are some good ones

method 2 – using redirection plugin

this is the most famous and trusted plugin for redirects

1 go to your wordpress dashboard
2 go to plugins then click add new
3 search for redirection
4 install it and activate it
5 then go to tools > redirection
6 click start setup and follow the steps
7 then you can add your old url and new url like this

source url /ahwa-alqahira
target url https://www.yoursite.com/ahwa-cairo

click add redirect and you are done

bonus tip

this plugin also shows you 404 errors so you can fix them too by redirecting broken links to working pages

method 3 – using rank math plugin

if you already using rank math seo plugin then you dont need another one for redirect it has it built in

1 go to rank math settings
2 enable redirection module
3 go to redirections under rank math
4 click add new
5 enter source url and destination url
6 choose 301 as the type
7 save and boom done

method 4 – using yoast premium

yoast free version don’t support redirect you need the paid one

1 go to yoast seo > redirects
2 add old url and new url
3 choose 301
4 click add redirect

simple and clean

common mistakes to avoid

now let me tell you some common mistakes Egyptians and others make when using 301 redirects

wrong url like forgetting the slash or https
using 302 instead of 301 for permanent redirect
redirecting to unrelated page like sending ahwa page to gym page
doing redirect loops like page a to b then b to a
using too many redirects it slows your site

so please, always double-check and test your redirects after adding them, And if you’re unsure, working with a trusted digital marketing company in Egypt can help you set up proper redirects

how to check if redirect is working

go to your browser and type the old url if it goes to the new one then you are good

you can also use free tools like

https://httpstatus.io
https://www.redirect-checker.org

they will show you the status code and if 301 is applied

how 301 redirect helps seo

if you are doing seo in egypt or anywhere 301 redirect is your friend because

it keeps your traffic from old pages
it tells google the new page is same or better
it passes link juice or backlinks to the new page
it helps fix broken links and avoid bad user experience
it helps your site stay clean and organized

real life egypt example

i had a client from nasr city who had a site selling furniture his old blog was like www.site.com/blog/how-to-buy-furniture but then he changed it to www.site.com/furniture-tips/buy-guide and forgot to redirect so his traffic dropped by 40 percent but then we added a 301 redirect and after 2 weeks the traffic came back and even improved

301 redirect and ecommerce

if you have woocommerce store selling stuff in egypt like clothes or electronics and you delete a product or change its url always add 301 redirect to similar product or category page or you will lose customers

example

old product /product/samsung-tv-32-inch
new one /product/samsung-tv-32inch-fullhd

redirect the old to new or send to category like /product-category/tv

what if i moved my site to new domain

ok if you moved your whole site like from www.mysite.com to www.newsite.com you need to add redirects for each page

you can do this with .htaccess like this

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite\.com$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.mysite\.com$

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.newsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

this will redirect everything from old domain to new domain

but you also should tell google via search console by using the change of address tool

things to remember if you in egypt

many egyptian hosting services use cpanel and apache so .htaccess method works for most people

but if your host uses nginx like some cloud hosts then you cant use .htaccess you need to edit nginx config but this is advanced and you better ask support or use plugin

also internet in egypt can be slow sometimes so avoid doing too many redirects or unnecessary ones because it affects loading speed

keep track of your redirects

after adding redirects always keep a list maybe in a notebook or on your phone notes app so you dont forget and if anything breaks you can fix it fast

you can write old url and new url and reason like

ahwa-alqahira to ahwa-cairo because of better seo
samsung-tv-old-name to new-name because we updated product name
old-contact-page to new-contact-page because we redesigned it

this helps a lot in future especially if your site has many pages

conclusion

so to wrap it up if you have a wordpress site and you live in egypt or manage egyptian clients 301 redirect is super important for keeping your site seo friendly and making sure users find what they looking for even if you change things

you can do it manually with .htaccess or use plugins like redirection or rank math or yoast premium

always test your redirect and avoid common mistakes

this small thing can make big difference in your traffic and user experience

and if you ever feel confused or scared its ok just take a deep breath and follow the steps again you got this