This article is deprecated! Any technical information refers to software versions that are now obsolete. Please visit the DIYthemes Blog for current updates, or check out the old Thesis Blog for a treasure trove of website marketing insights.
First of all, what is a 301 redirect? Simply put, it’s a way to make a URL on your site point to somewhere else. There are a couple of key situations where you might find it beneficial to implement a 301 redirect:
- If you’ve moved a page but still want to maintain link juice and prevent links to that page from ending up with a 404 error, or…
- If you practice affiliate marketing, you can “prettify” your affiliate links.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to focus on the latter. To illustrate, let’s assume that you’re a Thesis affiliate, and you’ve got a cryptic affiliate link that looks something like this:
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=198392&u=287419&m=24570&urllink=&afftrack=
In addition to being damn ugly, that link is pretty much impossible to remember. It would be much nicer if, instead of that heinous affiliate link, you could use something short, meaningful, and memorable—something like yoursite.com/thesis.
And this is precisely where the Thesis 301 redirect tool steps in and saves the day. Watch the video to see how easy it is to create handy 301 redirects with the Thesis Theme for WordPress!
Oh, and while you’re at it, you may as well join the DIYthemes affiliate program so you’ll have an ugly affiliate link to redirect with this killer functionality đŸ˜€
