Although this step is mainly for when you are building a replacement website, you must now check that your URLs lead to the correct pages. Ensure that all redirects are intentional and correct.
If you’re in the process of building a replacement website, it’s likely that pages on the new website don’t exist on the old website – and perhaps even the other way around. Sometimes, however, it’s just that the link structure is different. Whatever the case, it’s important to be thorough.
http://example.com/about-us is not the same as http://example.com/about_us.
Step One: Indexing
Open up this handy Google Spreadsheet (“Page Redirection Sheet“). This will help you index and compare old and new pages.
On each row, give every page a name (for easy reference). Then, list out all of your old pages and try to group them by page category (as in the example). Once you’re done, go through your new website and pair up the old pages with equivalent new pages.
If a page on the new website has a different URL to it’s equivalent page on the old website, then highlight the row in yellow for easy reference.
Step Two: Redirecting
Once you’ve finished indexing your site in the spreadsheet, open up the .htaccess file in the root directory of your website.
Since you’ve already indexed your site using the spreadsheet, simply locate your highlighted rows and use one of the following redirection rules (one per line):
301 Redirects
Use 301 redirects when you want to permanently redirect the old page to the new page. Example:
Redirect 301 http://www.example.com/about-us/ http://www.example.com/about_us/
302 Redirects
Use 302 redirects when you want to temporarily redirect the old page to the new page. Example:
Redirect http://www.example.com/about-us/ http://www.example.com/about_us/