13 Best WordPress 301 Redirect Plugins of 2022 Compared
WordPress 301 redirect plugins allow you to redirect an old URL (Permalink) to the new one more accurately. Many WordPress users are not a web developer or coder. Therefore, not everyone can make a manual 301 redirection when needed. In that case, they can use one of the 301 redirect plugins from the list below.
How to redirect WordPress site/ Page to another URL?
Although WordPress has the feature to set a 301 redirect automatically while changing a post or page URL. But, there may be a need to change the destination URL for the redirection manually. Another most critical use of 301 redirects is while changing the website domain name (Site Transfer). For such cases, you need a WordPress redirection plugin to accomplish your redirection tasks.
List of the Top WordPress Redirect Plugins
#1. RankMath
RankMath claims its inbuilt redirection manager to be one of the most sophisticated and complete redirection managers for WordPress. The features this plugin is pack with clearly backs up their claim. Its intuitive design lets you start redirecting link in no time and with just some clicks. It is designed and optimized with one thing in mind – fast redirection speed.
You have the option to select from the available five different types of redirection – 301 permanent moves, 302 temporary moves, 307 temporary redirects, 401 content deleted, and 451 content unavailable for legal reasons. And all these options are presented neatly under the Rank Math tab. It has a galore of features, but at the same time is makes redirects as simple as possible. The included Exact Math feature lets you redirect exact URLs to the URL of your choice, and the partial match feature lets you redirect to any URL with a string to the new URL.
You can even redirect URLs starting and ending with a specific string. The support for REGEX assures the creation of multiple redirect with little to no hardship. Some of the additional features include the option to export all the redirects to .htaccess files supported by Apache Servers and config files compliant to Nginx Servers. You can also easily debug every redirection using the provided Debug options.
#2. Easy Redirect Manager
If you need to redirect the whole site or just some pages or posts of your WordPress site, there is no better and simpler way to do so than 301 Redirects. You could be rebuilding your site, and you want to hide the process in progress. Or, you have content that is becoming too outdated for the public. Either way, there is no better way to set redirects than through this reliable plugin.
How so? You can set up the redirections in no time with a simple drop-down menu! That is right, choose the messy thing you want to hide as your Requested URL, and pick the Destination URL from the drop-down menu. Pick “Custom” if you are looking to paste the Destination URL for your redirect, or select the specific post, page, media or team archives from the menu.
Each of these redirects you created will be neatly listed for you. You can use this list to check “hits,” or the number of times visitors were redirected per specific redirect. You can export the list for future use, or if you already have a CSV file of redirects, you should take advantage of the import feature.
This effortless and almost a no-brainer 301 redirect solution comes completely free, while still being regularly maintained, and with new features, such as 404 error log, in progress!
#3. Redirection
In my opinion, “Redirection” is one of the best and complete WordPress 301 redirect plugins. This single plugin actually can solve almost every 301 redirect issue of your website. Therefore it is very popular among all. If you visit the WordPress plugin directory, you will find this plugin with more than 1 million plus active installation. So what makes this plugin so popular?
You must enjoy the functionality and flexibility of this plugin while using it. This single plugin will keep your website healthy because it has the option to track any 404 pages of your website. Indeed, 404 is not a big issue for small sites, but when your website grows, you might not be able to monitor or track every 404 pages. These dead links will affect your site, but if you use to track and redirect those errors to a live page, your website will remain strong. You can do this significant task by using this plugin.
Also, this simple WordPress redirect plugin will enhance some other fantastic functionality of your website. It will create a single redirect manager page from where you will be able to arrange all of your 301 redirects. Moreover, if you wish to set some conditional redirect, you are free to do it by using this plugin. Indeed, the terrific news is, you can get and use this plugin comprehensively free of cost.
#4. Simple 301 Redirects
“Simple 301 Redirects” is one higher rated WordPress 301 redirect plugin. The developers and contributors are taking care of this plugin frequently. Therefore you don’t have to think of bugs or compatibility issues. If you are trying to find a simple 301 redirect plugin for your website, you should use this one. It is thoroughly free, and you can set all of your essential 301 redirects within few clicks.
Many of us start blogging on the various third-party blogging platforms like Blogger. After a few days, we wish to be professional and migrate to our blog for a self-hosted platform. In that case, you will find this plugin very useful because you will be able to solve the URL structural issue and set a permanent 301 redirect in a natural way. In that case, you will find this WP redirection plugin very impressive because you will be able to figure out the URL structural issue and set a permanent 301 redirect in an easy way.
#5. 404 to 301
404 (page not found) errors considered as dead links of a website. Assume that, a small amount of 404 errors are not at all harmful to a website, but if your site contains a lot of dead links, it will be detrimental to both of your users and search engine rank. You can say that a lot of 404 errors can destroy your website’s user experience. These dead links generated from many aspects like deleting old contents, images or any other web-page unused content.
For this reason, we must take proper care of those links. We should find those out and redirect to the proper destination to keep our blog vigorous. To do that task proficiently, I am recommending this one of the best 404 to 301 redirect plugins. Naturally, install this plugin and set a proper destination for all 404 error pages of your website. This redirection plugin will take care of the rest. It will automatically track and redirect all 404 URLs by putting a 301 status code.
#6. Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect
Among many redirect plugins for WordPress, Trash Duplicate and 301 Redirect is comparatively exceptional. This plugin develops for the multi-authored WordPress website. We can see a lot of website or blog has multiple authors or contributors. In that case, everyone may not come up with original or unique contents. If someone put out a duplicate piece of content on your blog, you will be able to detect and remove that.
Otherwise, you will lose the search engine rank. Indeed, you will have a duplicate content penalty if you take no action against those crispy copied contents. Therefore, I strongly recommend this plugin to find and remove any duplicate content of your blog. Not only that but also this plugin will redirect those URLs of the removed materials to the homepage. So you will not have to think about your website health and user experience.
#7. Safe Redirect Manager
This WordPress redirect plugin is made to play with the HTTP status code. Not only 301 but also you can set different HTTP status code for individual URLs of your website by using this plugin. In the case of 301 redirect plugins, I must say this one is very flexible and exceptional. After installing this plugin, you will see a very simple UI where you will find three simple options.
You will be asked for the URL you wish to redirect, for the destination URL and finally what should be the HTTP status code for that URL. This is as simple as that! You can say it is a three-step plugin to configure a proper redirect with your preferred HTTP status code including 301. Moreover, this amazingly simple plugin will not conflict with any other and will work with the latest version of WordPress. Therefore, I must say it is one of the best and simplest 301 redirect plugin for WordPress.
#8. WP 404 Auto Redirect to Similar Post
This WordPress 301 redirection plugin works on the common 404 issue, but it has its intelligence which makes it noteworthy. I think you have already got a clear view of this plugin by reading its name. Yes, it is developed to detect website’s 404 error pages and redirect those to the most similar post or pages. All these works are done naturally by the plugin. You don’t have to misuse your valuable time to trace and redirect your website dead links manually anymore.
You have to tell the plugin what type of redirect (301 or 302) you want. After that, the plugin will take care of the rest. Another important thing is if the plugin doesn’t find any similar post or page to redirect any dead link, it will set a 301 redirect to the homepage for that 404 page. Isn’t it pretty clear and flexible, huh?
#9. SEO Redirection Plugin
SEO Redirection Plugin is one of the best 301 redirect WordPress plugins with all important features. Also, it is one of the most attractive plugins with more than 50,000 Active installations. If you visit the review section of this plugin, you definitely will get to see many positive reviews. You will be able to manage all 301 redirections from one place and make your site more SEO friendly by using this plugin.
Most importantly the plugin will play a major role while migrating your WordPress website or changing the primary directory. Since 301 redirect is a major task to perform during that time. Otherwise, your website search engine rank will get down. Another important feature of this plugin that I should mention is “Wild Card Redirection”! So you can say while changing the domain name of your site, you don’t have to redirect every single old URL solely. You can set a 301 wildcard redirection to perform the entire task within a single click.
#10. Attachment Pages Redirect
We all noticed that images of WordPress are considering by attaching on it. Although WordPress generates an individual page for every attachment, yet you might think a WordPress website can contain thousands of images which will create thousands of pages. If you don’t redirect those valueless pages to their mother page, Google could be going to index those all. If any visitor lands on those valueless attachment pages, the overall user experience of your site will start decreasing.
You should use this WordPress 301 redirect plugin to avoid these issues. This amazing plugin will redirect a visitor from the attachment page to the parent page as usually by generating a 301 HTTP status code. If the parent page does not exist, the users automatically carry out to the home page by the redirection process. Moreover, if the parent post remains in the trash, the plugin will return a 404 error code. For this reason, this plugin deserves the recommendation, and I am doing this on this post.
#11. Seo 301 Meta: Manage Your Redirects
Use this WordPress redirect plugin to take control over internal and external links of your website and redirect them to any new destination. According to me, SEO 301 Meta is one of the simplest 301 redirect plugins among all. Though it is highly compatible with the latest version of WordPress, yet it has a super easy user interface. You will not find any additional settings or plugin configuration page. After installing the plugin, it will take you to the page from where you have to set 301 redirects.
You could say, the process to set a 301 redirect for any URL is a matter of a few moments. Only you have to put the source and destination URL and click on the add button, that’s it. You can completely avoid redirects related complications as this plugin works without a .htaccess file. Over and above it has the wild card functionality which supports non-English special characters in URL etc.
#12. Redirect List
Redirect List is uncomplicated, clean and lightweight WordPress 301 redirect plugin. The specialty of this plugin is, it can work to GET URLs. Although, this plugin works by matching URLs with the parameters, whether it has value or no value at all.
You can set not only 301 but also 302 and 307 HTTP redirects by using this WordPress redirect plugin. So the story goes, the plugin is free to the hilt; even it doesn’t contain any hidden advertisement link or tracking code. So you can use this without any reluctance. While it comes to the installation process, this plugin has the unbelievable quiet easy process. You have two options to get this plugin run on your website. You can install this plugin through the WordPress plugin directory or could upload it within your plugin directory page. After that, activate the plugin and enjoy the power of the redirection process within the quiet simple way.
#13. Yoast SEO Pro
Redirect Manager from Yoast Pro is for those who need redirecting links without having to rely on the developer to do it for them. As 404 error is not suitable for your site’s SEO and should be avoided, the redirect manager automatically detects a deleted page or post and suggest you redirect it to another URL. It is as simple as that. This even works if you’re changing the URL of a page – redirect manager will automatically create a redirect to the new URL.
The redirect tab under SEO lets you enter the old URL and the new URL you want the visitors to be redirected to without any additional hassle. Redirect Managers support 301, 302, 307, 410, and 451 redirect types, which you can choose depending on your situation. This plugin also supports REGEX redirects and an import/export feature that takes in or gives you CSV file with all the redirects.
Any Other WordPress 301 Redirect Plugin
I become glutted while listing all 301 redirect plugins those are equally important on their task. Hope that you will find this list worthful. Please read every plugin reviews thoroughly and sort out which one you are not using recently. It’s your choice, may go for one or more than one plugin from the above list based on your need. If you think I have missed out anyone that deserved to be listed above, let me know by leaving a comment. I will surely add that to the list. You can also share this list to appreciate my hard work of bringing out these best redirection plugin list.