At some point, every website owner needs to change a page’s URL , delete an old post, or move a website to a new domain name. It’s a normal part of website management.
However, this can create broken links, which lead to 404 errors that frustrate your visitors and hurt your site’s SEO. We know how worrying it can be to risk losing traffic you’ve worked hard to get.
The good news is that you can easily fix this. In this article, we will show you the best WordPress redirect plugins to help you manage this safely.
Whether you’re running a small blog or a large site, these tools can help you fix broken links and protect your SEO without writing any code.
Quick Overview: Best WordPress Redirect Plugins
Are you in a rush? Don’t worry. Here’s a quick overview of the best WordPress redirect plugins.
| # | Tool | Best For | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | All in One SEO for WordPress | Comprehensive SEO and redirects | From $174.65/year |
| 🥈 | SeedProd | Custom 404 landing pages | From $39.50/year |
| 🥉 | Pretty Links | Affiliate link management with support for Amazon Affiliates | Free / From $99/year |
| 🎖️ | ThirstyAffiliates | Affiliate link management with support Amazon Affiliates | Free / From $49/year |
| 🏅 | Redirection | Simple, free redirects | Free |
What Are Redirects in WordPress?
Redirects allow you to send users to a different URL than the one they clicked on.
Usually, when you delete a post or page in WordPress or change its URL, then the old URL would start showing a 404 error page.
Search engines wouldn’t be able to find it, and you would miss out on the traffic and SEO rankings you were getting for that page.
Redirects allow you to fix that by sending users to new or similar content on your website. This helps you preserve SEO while offering a better experience for your users.
You may also need redirects if you move a WordPress website to a new domain name.
Why Set up Redirects in WordPress?
Redirects guide visitors from old, broken, or changed articles to new and relevant ones. Following are some of the reasons that make redirects important.
1. Preserving Your SEO Juice
Search engines cannot find a page if it’s deleted or moved to a different URL. Redirects tell them, “Hey, the content is in this new place now!” That helps preserve your WordPress SEO and traffic.
2. Enhancing User Experience:
Imagine clicking a link and landing on a 404 error page. This can be really frustrating for users. Redirects let you prevent this by ensuring that your users can always find what they are looking for.
3. Managing Affiliate Links
Many websites make money online by recommending products to their users. They earn a commission when users buy a product by clicking one of their links. Redirect plugins allow you to use your own short URLs or branded links for these URLs. They also allow you to redirect users to the right product properly.
4. Preserving Social Media Shares:
Have you ever shared a post on social media and later changed its URL? Redirects ensure that when someone clicks the shared link, they land on the updated page, not an error. This maintains your social media presence and prevents potential visitors from bouncing away due to broken links.
Basically, it is like keeping a map updated. It ensures both search engines and visitors can navigate your website effortlessly.
What Are Different Types of Redirects?
There are different types of redirects that you can set up, but they all mean something different for search engines.
Your WordPress website sends an appropriate header code when a page is requested.
This code (usually invisible to human users) lets search engines and browsers know what kind of redirect it is.
The common types of redirects used by WordPress websites are 301 Redirects (Permanent Redirects), 302 Redirects (Temporary Redirects), and 304 Redirects (Cached Not-Modified Redirects).
Luckily, there are excellent WordPress plugins available that make setting all of these up super easy for you.
Now, let’s look at the best redirect plugins for WordPress that you can use.
How We Tested and Reviewed WordPress Redirect Plugins
At WPBeginner, our recommendations are built on years of real-world testing. To find the best redirect plugins, our review team focused on several key areas:
- ⚙️ Ease of Use & Setup: We prioritized plugins with intuitive interfaces that make creating and managing redirects simple for everyone, not just developers. We looked for clear workflows and helpful documentation.
- 🚀 Features & Functionality: Our testing went beyond basic redirects. We evaluated advanced features like 404 error monitoring, full-site redirect options, affiliate link tools, and support for regular expressions (regex).
- ⚡ Performance Impact: A redirect plugin shouldn’t slow down your website. We measured the performance of each plugin on our test sites to ensure they are lightweight and efficient, protecting both your SEO and user experience.
By installing and using these plugins on our own staging and live sites, we can confidently recommend tools that are reliable, powerful, and easy to manage.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
Founded by Syed Balkhi in 2009, WPBeginner is the original and largest free resource site for WordPress beginners. Our expert team has helped millions of readers navigate the complexities of building and growing their own websites.
Unlike other review sites, we have extensive first-hand experience. We manage a large portfolio of high-traffic websites, so our recommendations come from using these very tools to solve real-world business challenges.
Every plugin on this list has been thoroughly installed and vetted by our experts. To learn more, see the complete editorial process we strictly follow for all of our reviews.
1. All in One SEO for WordPress
Best for: All-in-one SEO & redirect management
We use All in One SEO for WordPress on all our websites to set up redirects. We found it incredibly useful in tracking 404 errors, setting up redirects, and managing them. For more details, see our complete All in One SEO review.
It comes with a powerful Redirection Manager tool, which helps you find 404 errors on your website, track broken links, and quickly set up 301 redirects.
We found All in One SEO to be the easiest way to set up redirects. Enter the outdated URL in the Source, and next to it, add the new URL under Target.
The plugin also allows you to set up full site redirects, which is invaluable when moving your site to a new domain, merging websites, or moving subdomain to the main domain.
All in One SEO enables you to use fast server redirects, track and monitor redirects, and you can even set up automatic redirects.
Using multiple domains to promote your website? All in One SEO’s Site Alias feature allows you to effortlessly redirect users from your Alias domain to the correct URL on your root domain name.
Plus, you get all the benefits of using All in One SEO. It is the most comprehensive WordPress SEO toolkit on the market, allowing you to easily improve your site’s SEO without breaking the bank.
Pros:
- Comprehensive SEO toolkit
- Easy to set up redirects
- Full-site redirects for migrations
Cons:
- Requires Pro plan
Why We Recommend All in One SEO for WordPress: This plugin provides a complete SEO solution with robust redirect features, making it ideal for those who need a comprehensive tool.
Pricing: Redirection Manager is included in the PRO plan of All in One SEO, which is $174.65/year. This license includes ten sites and access to priority support.
2. SeedProd
Best for: Building custom, high-converting 404 pages
We use SeedProd to redirect users to custom 404 error pages on several websites. We found it highly useful in setting up 404 error pages that look beautiful and enhance user experience.
SeedProd is a powerful page builder plugin that allows you to create custom landing pages, design complete themes, create login pages, and set up redirects to your custom 404 pages. For more details, see our SeedProd review.
It does not offer many redirection features. However, it does allow you to create beautiful 404 pages for your website.
You see, normally, 400 error pages in WordPress are quite plain and not very helpful to the users.
With SeedProd’s drag-and-drop page builder, you can create a custom 404-page design and make it more useful.
For instance, you can include your popular articles, promote top-selling products, include a contact form, or ask users to sign up for your newsletter.
Pros:
- Best for creating custom 404 pages
- Drag-and-drop page builder
- Promotes top-selling products on 404 pages
Cons:
- Covers basic redirection features
- Focused more on page building
Why We Recommend SeedProd: SeedProd excels at creating custom 404 pages and is perfect for users looking to enhance their site’s design and user experience.
Pricing: Starting from $39.50/year. There is also a free version of SeedProd that you can try.
3. Pretty Links
Best for: Branded affiliate link shortening & cloaking
We use Pretty Links on several websites to set up affiliate links and redirect users seamlessly. In our experience, it is the easiest way to redirect users to affiliate links. To learn more, see our Pretty Links review.
It is one of the best affiliate link manager plugins for WordPress. It allows you to easily redirect users to affiliate products and landing pages.
Typically, you can add an affiliate link to your WordPress posts and pages like you would normally do. However, what happens when a website changes the URL of a product you are recommending? You’ll have to edit all those pages to replace that URL manually.
Adding an affiliate link like that also passes some of your SEO reputation to the linked website.
Pretty Links helps you solve this by allowing you to redirect users properly. It also allows you to use your own branded links (cloaked links).
You can choose the redirection type and sort your links, categories, and tags.
Use a link more frequently? Pretty Links allows you to set up automatic link insertion for specific keywords.
Pros:
- Excellent for managing affiliate links
- Cloaked and branded links
- Automatic link insertion
Cons:
- Slightly more expensive
- Learning curve for new users
Why We Recommend Pretty Links: Pretty Links is ideal for affiliate marketers as it offers powerful link management and tracking capabilities.
Pricing: Starting from $99.60 /year.
4. ThirstyAffiliates
Best for: Advanced tools for serious affiliate marketers
We use ThirstyAffiliates on WPBeginner to manage affiliate links. We have been using it for years and have found it highly reliable and efficient. Take a look at our ThirstyAffiliates review for more details.
ThirstyAffiliates is one of the best affiliate marketing tools that we have used. One of the standout features of the plugin is its ease of use when setting up affiliate link redirects.
It allows you to cloak your affiliate links using your branded URLs. You can set up proper redirects with the right redirection code for your affiliate links.
ThirstyAffiliates also allows you to easily manage all your links under one dashboard. You can sort them into categories and tags and use automatic insertion for your most used links.
The plugin also monitors link health and will track your links for 404 errors. If you add Amazon links to your site, then ThirstyAffiliate also allows you to automatically uncloak those links to comply with the Amazon polices.
Both ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links are equally great affiliate plugins with minor differences. To learn more, see our comparison of Pretty Links vs. ThirstyAffiliates.
Pros:
- Best for affiliate link management
- Monitors link health
- Amazon link compliance
Cons:
- Similar to Pretty Links
- Requires configuration for optimal use
Why We Recommend ThirstyAffiliates: ThirstyAffiliates is tailored for affiliate marketers, providing advanced tools to manage and monitor affiliate links effectively.
Pricing: Starting from $99.60 /year.
5. Redirection
Best for: Powerful and completely free redirects
If you are looking for a simpler and free option for a redirect plugin, then we recommend using Redirection. It is a popular WordPress redirection plugin that allows you to easily set up website redirects.
We like its simple interface to easily add a new redirect. You just need to add the Source (old URL) and Target (New URL).
Optionally, you can choose the redirection type, group different links, and track 404 errors.
It also keeps a log of all links redirected to your website. You can see which links are redirected more often than others.
Redirection can also be used to relocate a site to the new domain name, using domain aliases, and more.
Pros:
- The free version is quite capable
- Logs all redirected links
- Supports domain aliases
Cons:
- Limited to basic features
- It may not be suitable for large sites
Why We Recommend Redirection: Redirection is a reliable, free option for basic redirect needs, making it suitable for small to medium-sized websites.
Pricing: Free
6. Simple 301 Redirects
Best for: Beginners needing quick and easy 301 redirects
As the name suggests, Simple 301 Redirects is an easy-to-use WordPress redirects plugin.
The plugin only allows you to set 301 redirects. It has a much simpler interface where you add the source and target URL.
Optionally, you can use the wild cards to match URLs using Regex. The plugin also allows you to update URLs and import/export redirect rules.
Pros:
- Very easy to use
- Free
- Supports Regex for matching URLs
Cons:
- Limited to 301 redirects
- Basic interface
Why We Recommend Simple 301 Redirects: Perfect for straightforward 301 redirects, this plugin offers simplicity and efficiency without any cost.
Pricing: Free
7. Rank Math
Best for: Users already using the Rank Math plugin for SEO.
Rank Math is a WordPress SEO plugin that comes with a Redirection component.
It allows you to set up redirects on your WordPress website easily. You can choose a redirection code, organize your redirects in categories, and even import/export your redirects.
Redirect manager in RankMath also lets you track 404 errors on your WordPress website. However, you will need to add redirects for those errors manually.
The plugin also allows you to schedule redirects and bulk edit them.
Pros:
- Comprehensive SEO plugin
- Tracks 404 errors
- Supports bulk editing
Cons:
- Requires manual setup for 404 errors
- Paid plans start at $69/year
Why We Recommend Rank Math: Rank Math combines SEO and redirection features in one plugin, ideal for users who want an all-in-one solution.
Pricing: Starts at 69.00/year
8. 404 to 301
Best for: A simple, temporary fix for all 404 errors
404 to 301 is a simpler redirect plugin for WordPress. It allows you to redirect from 404 error to any page on your WordPress website.
This means that when users click on a broken or outdated link, they will be redirected to a page that you choose instead of the 404 error page.
This approach is not recommended in most cases. All your users will be redirected to the same page, which may not be what they were expecting.
However, it could be used as a temporary solution if you are seeing many 404 errors and need time to set up redirects using a different redirect plugin.
Pros:
- Redirects 404 errors to any page
- Simple interface
- Free
Cons:
- Not recommended for all situations
- Limited redirection options
Why We Recommend 404 to 301: This plugin is excellent for users needing a simple solution to handle 404 errors by redirecting them to relevant pages.
Pricing: Free
9. 301 Redirects
Best for: Simple redirect management with 404 error logging
301 Redirects is another simple yet powerful WordPress redirect manager plugin.
The plugin comes with a simple interface to add your redirects. You can easily add your redirects and choose the redirection type.
Apart from adding redirects, the plugin also tracks and logs 404 errors on your WordPress website. You can then manually set up redirects for those 404 pages if needed.
Pros:
- Simple and effective
- Tracks and logs 404 errors
- Free base plugin
Cons:
- Paid plans required for advanced features
- Basic interface
Why We Recommend 301 Redirects: 301 Redirects is a straightforward plugin that effectively manages redirects, suitable for users who need a hassle-free tool.
Pricing: The base plugin is available for free. Paid plans start at $49/year.
Which is The Best Redirect Plugin for WordPress?
All in One SEO for WordPress is the best redirect plugin for WordPress. The Redirection Manager in All in One SEO is the most comprehensive among all other redirect plugins.
It is super easy to use for beginner-level users and powerful enough for advanced users. Whether you want to set up full site migration or fix broken links, All in One SEO for WordPress makes redirects simple.
It allows you to switch between WordPress rewrites and server-based redirects. The server-based redirects are faster and good for WordPress performance and speed.
We hope this article helped you compare the best WordPress redirect plugins. You may also want to see our pick of the best internal linking plugins for WordPress or see the best content optimization tools for WordPress.
Frequently Asked Questions about WordPress Redirects
We know that redirects can bring up a lot of questions, especially around SEO and site performance. To help you out, we’ve compiled answers to some of the most common questions our readers ask.
What is a 301 redirect in WordPress?
A 301 redirect is a way to permanently send visitors and search engines from one URL to another. It’s the most commonly used redirect for SEO and content changes.
Do redirects affect my SEO?
Yes, they do. When used correctly, redirects can preserve your SEO rankings by guiding search engines to the new content instead of showing a 404 error.
Can I set up redirects without a plugin?
Yes, but it requires editing your site’s .htaccess file or server config, which can be risky if you’re not familiar with code. Plugins offer a much safer and beginner-friendly way to manage redirects.
How do I know if I need a redirect?
If you delete a post, change a URL, or move your site to a new domain, then you should set up a redirect. It helps users and search engines find the right content.
What happens if I don’t use redirects?
Visitors will end up on 404 error pages, which can lead to lost traffic and lower SEO rankings. Redirects help you avoid that by sending users to the correct page.
More Helpful Tutorials on Redirects and 404 Errors
If you’re new to redirects or want to avoid common mistakes that hurt your SEO, these beginner-friendly tutorials will guide you step by step. We’ve picked some of our most useful articles to help you manage 404 errors, understand redirect types, and keep your visitors happy.
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