Retiring a URL without losing the traffic it still gets

Pages get retired. A service page is folded into another, a campaign landing page stops being relevant, a whole section moves. On a single site you notice the drop in traffic. Across an estate you often do not, because the loss is spread thin and no one page looks broken.

A redirect is what keeps that traffic. It tells browsers and search engines where the page went, and it is set from the panel without touching the site's code.

Permanent or temporary, and why it matters

• Permanent (301) says the move is final. Search engines transfer the page's standing to the destination and eventually stop asking for the old address. This is what you want when a page is genuinely gone.
• Temporary (302) says the original will be back. Nothing is transferred, and the old address stays in the index.

Choosing temporary because it feels safer is the common mistake. The old URL keeps its position, the new one never earns any, and a year later you still have two addresses competing for the same content.

Setting one up

1. Open Domain Redirects for the account.
2. Press Create Forwarder.
3. Pick permanent unless you know the page is coming back.
4. Choose the domain, and put the path after the slash, for example old-page.
5. Enter the full destination URL, including https://.
6. Decide whether the redirect should also cover the www form.
7. Press Confirm.

The rule appears in the table with its source, destination and type, and takes effect on the next request.

Point at the closest match, not the home page

Redirecting a retired page to the home page is the path of least effort and it wastes most of what you are trying to keep. A visitor who wanted a specific thing lands somewhere generic and leaves; search engines treat a mass redirect to the root as a soft removal rather than a move.

Send each retired URL to the page that now answers its question. If there genuinely is no replacement, letting it return 410 is more honest than pretending the home page is the answer.

Keep the list short

Redirects accumulate. Chains form when a page moves twice and the first rule is left pointing at the second address instead of the final one. Every hop is a delay for the visitor and a step search engines may not follow to the end.

When you move a page that was already a redirect target, update the original rule to point straight at the new destination. On a network this is worth a periodic sweep: pull the redirect list per account and check that no rule points at another rule.

Google's own guidance on site moves with URL changes is worth reading once before a large restructure, particularly on how long to leave redirects in place. The short answer is longer than you think: a year is not excessive.