I'm analysing your websites...
XXX pages need to be redirected for your new website
Review each suggestion on the next page and download the .CSV or .htaccess files when you're done!
Scan URLs and get 301-redirects in seconds
Rapid301 will scan both sites, analyse the pages and automatically match up the most relevant paths. Learn more
Website Migrations & Rapid301
From an SEO and lead generation perspective, the single most important thing to do during a site rebuild is ensure that rankings are retained and that traffic continues to flow.
If you are migrating to Webflow from another CMS, checkout this guide.
Why 301-Redirects?
The TL:DR is that all pages driving traffic to your current site need to be rebuilt your new site, so that users land on a page with relevant content.
We strongly recommend that you rebuild any pages that;
- have backlinks
- are ranking well
- have been shared
- are on printed media
Note: 301-Redirects are only needed for pages that have no exact URL match between the old site and the new site.
Best Practice New Site Structure
The best thing to do when rebuilding a site is keep the URL structure the exact same for as many pages as possible, or as close to the original structure possible.
Here are the URL strategies ranked from best to worst:
- Keep the URL the same - no redirect is needed.
- If the page is similar but the URL has changed, create a 301-redirect for each specific page.
Example: /contact-us -> /contact - Any blog pages that you might have been removed should be redirected to the most relevant new page.
Example: /blog/blog-is-removed -> /blog - Any pages that have no relevant path should be redirected to the home page (this should be used sparingly).
Example: /this-will-not-exist-anymore -> / - No 301-redirects, users land on 404 page.
If you don't rebuild these pages and do not setup a 301-redirect, users will land on a 404 page you are going to lose and lead and potentially damage your domain.
How To Create 301-Redirect Documents
Path-to-path 301 redirect's can by managed in bulk using .csv or .htaccess files that show which OLD URL needs to be routed to which NEW URL. They don't look to exciting, but they're critically important.
The steps to creating this document are to:
- Get the sitemap from the old & new websites.
- Clean sitemaps, remove duplicates, error pages on the staging site.
- Match the most relevant URL on the new site to the respective URL on the old site.
- Remove the base URL so it is is only the PATHs, not full URLs (if the domain is the same)
It's time consuming to do this process manually, but there is a faster way.
Fastest Way To Create 301-Redirects
You guessed it, the fastest way is to use Rapid301. After doing lots of rebuilds, we built it to automate this manual process.
Simply enter your CURRENT WEBSITE URL and STAGING WEBSITE URL and Rapid301 will scan your sites and automatically match up the most relevant paths.
You can then review the output in the 301 redirect super table to ensure the best paths have been redirected, and to
As a web agency owner with 15+ site rebuilds and migrations under his belt, Luke helps web development and SEO agencies improve their migration workflows through automation. Rapid301 was used internally and then opened up to the world when others asked about the idea.
FAQs
Can't find the answer you are looking for?
Rapid301 uses a series of workflows and matching algorithms to compare every URL on the staging to site with each URL on the current site. This gives you the foundational redirect document. You can check the output in the powerful 301-Redirect Table to make any adjustments before exporting your redirects as a .csv or .htaccess file.
Yes! If you use Screaming Frog or have sitemaps in a .csv file, you can upload them and have Rapid301 process these. Use this CSV -> 301 Redirect tool.
You can simply input your Current Site Url and Staging Site Url into Rapid301 and it will crawl both sites to get the sitemap, then automatically process them. Or if you have used a tool like Screaming Frog to get the sitemaps, you can upload them directly using this CSV -> 301 Redirect tool.
Rapid301's matching algorithm is very accurate when the paths are similar and it easily identifies the best match path. If the path structure has changed significantly or if there are no similar URLs, it will redirect to the parent route or index, meaning that it will still be handled. You will see paths with no great match by the blue indicator on the project review page.
Rapid301 does a great job in 90%+ cases, but there are some situations in which it can give outputs you wouldn't expect. It is strongly recommended that you check all the rows and make adjustments before exporting the redirects to make sure everything is in order.
No, Rapid301 checks all the status codes all the URLs on the staging site for both tools and excludes any that return a 404. This means that if you use the URL -> 301-Redirect or the CSV -> 301-Redirect meaning no staging paths will resolve to a 404 error page.
Rapid301 supports both username and password for sites that have HTTP authentication. You can either enter the username and password or temporarily disable it while running the scan. If your site has a password field on the page, and not HTTP, we recommend disabling the password protection for best results.
Yes, Rapid301 URL -> 301 redirect tool redirects all pages found on the current site, regardless of the status code. This means 200, 404 and any other status code will be redirected.
Rapid301 is free for sites up to 50 pages and then charges a fixed rate per project for various page ranges from there. For a full price list, please visit our pricing page.
Rapid301 is completely free to use to create 301-redirect documents for any site. For sites over 50 pages, you will need to create an account. You can edit the 301-redirects in the editor and you only pay when you need to export them. If you are not satisfied with the results we are happy to offer a refund. There is no subscription service so there is no need for a free trial.
Creating 301-redirects manually is extremely time consuming and boring. I did it once for a 350 page and that was enough motivation for me to spend 1000's of hours building Rapid301 so no one has to suffer the pain and frustration again.
301-redirects
really f⌛️️⚡️*n fast.
Save hours doing redirects and do more of the things you love🕺
