Redirects

Redirects are a critical part of maintaining site quality, SEO health, and user experience. They ensure users and search engines are sent to the correct destination when URLs change.

This guide explains when redirects matter, which tools we use at Terra, and how to choose the right approach depending on the project setup.

What is a Redirect?

A redirect tells the browser and search engines that a URL has moved to a new location.

Common reasons for redirects:

Page or slug changes
Content consolidation or removal
Site restructures or migrations
Temporary campaigns or experiments

When implemented correctly, redirects:

Preserve SEO value
Prevent broken links (404s)
Maintain a smooth user experience

Common Redirect Types

301 – Permanent Redirect

Use when a URL is permanently replaced by another.

SEO value is transferred to the new URL
This is the default choice for most production changes

302 – Temporary Redirect

Use when the change is not permanent.

SEO value is not fully transferred
Useful for short-term campaigns or testing

410 – Gone

Use when a page is intentionally removed with no replacement.

Tells search engines the content should be dropped from the index

Redirects in WordPress (Yoast SEO Premium)

Some projects use Yoast SEO Premium for redirects (e.g. ProsperOps).

✅ Good use cases

Editorial changes by non-developers
Slug updates on posts or pages
Simple 1:1 redirects
SEO teams managing redirects without dev involvement

❌ Not great for

Large-scale migrations
Bulk redirects
Regex-heavy rules
Environment-based logic

Yoast redirects are great for content-level changes, but not for structural URL changes.

Redirects in WordPress (Redirection Plugin)

For most WordPress projects, we use the Redirection plugin.

Why we prefer it

Full control over:
- 301 / 302 / 410 status codes
- Regex-based redirects
- Conditional logic
Import / export support
Better logging and debugging
Handles large redirect sets reliably

Considerations

Redirects are database-based
Should be reviewed during large migrations

This is our default choice for complex or large-scale redirect needs.

Redirects when using Sanity + Astro

For Sanity-based projects, redirects are handled at the application level.

How it works

We create a Custom Post Type (CPT) called Redirects in Sanity.
Each redirect includes:
- from (original path)
- to (destination URL or path)
- type (301 permanent or 302 temporary)
Redirect data is fetched from Sanity.
Astro consumes this data and applies redirects at build/runtime.

This approach allows:

CMS-managed redirects
Clear separation of content and routing logic
Support for both internal and external redirects

Internal vs External Redirects

Internal redirects

From: /old-page
To: /new-page
Most common use case

External redirects

From: /campaign
To: https://external-site.com/page
Useful for partnerships, tools, or off-site flows

Both are supported across our setups.

What Redirects Do NOT Fix

Redirects are powerful, but they are not a catch-all solution.

Avoid these anti-patterns:

Using redirects to hide broken internal linking
Redirecting everything to the homepage
Long redirect chains (A → B → C)
Using redirects instead of proper canonicals or noindex rules

If a URL shouldn’t exist, decide clearly:

Redirect it
Noindex it
Or return a proper 404 / 410

Best Practices

Decide redirects early, especially during restructures
Prefer 301 redirects unless there’s a clear reason not to
Keep redirect rules simple and intentional
Document large redirect changes
Validate redirects before saying “it’s fixed”

Knowledge Check

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