Redirects and the 404 monitor

Turn it on

Go to Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Redirects & 404. The options are:

• Enable redirect manager: runs your redirects.
• Auto-create 301 when a published URL changes: adds a redirect from the old URL whenever you change a published post's slug.
• Log 404 errors: records requests for pages that don't exist.
• Max 404 log entries: how many entries to keep. Older entries are removed first.
• Redirect all 404s to homepage: sends every missing page to the homepage. We don't recommend it: search engines treat mass redirects to the homepage as soft 404s, and visitors lose the context of what they were looking for.

Add a redirect

1. Go to Rilea SEO, then Redirects.
2. Enter the source: the old path, such as /old-page/.
3. Enter the target: the new path or a full URL.
4. Choose the match type and status code, then save.

Match types

With regex, you can reuse captured groups in the target as $1, $2 and so on. For example, source ^/news/(.*)$ with target /blog/$1 moves a whole section.

Status codes

410 and 451 don't need a target. Visitors see a short "Gone" or "Unavailable For Legal Reasons" page.

Automatic redirects

With automatic redirects on, changing the slug of a published post, page or product creates an exact 301 from the old URL to the new one, labelled "Auto: slug changed" in the list. If you change a slug back, Rilea SEO won't create a redirect that points a URL at itself.

Use the 404 monitor

Go to Rilea SEO, then 404 Monitor, to see the missing URLs being requested, with how often each was hit.

Work through the list with the most hits first:

1. A page that moved: add a 301 to its new address.
2. A typo in a link on your own site: fix the link where it is, then add a redirect for any external links you can't change.
3. A deleted page with a close replacement: redirect to the replacement.
4. A deleted page with no replacement: leave it as a 404, or add a 410.
5. Bots probing for files you don't have, such as /wp-login.bak: ignore them.

Don't redirect everything. A missing page with no relevant replacement should return a 404 or 410; redirecting it somewhere unrelated helps nobody.

Import and export

On the Redirects screen, Export CSV downloads every redirect with the columns source, target, code, match, status and hits.

To import, upload a CSV with at least the source and target in the first two columns. The third column sets the status code (301 if empty) and the fourth sets the match type (exact if empty). A header row starting with source is skipped.

source,target,code,match
/old-page/,/new-page/,301,exact
/2019/,/archive/,301,starts

Moving from another SEO plugin? The importer brings existing redirects across from Yoast SEO Premium, Rank Math and the other supported plugins. See import from your old SEO plugin.

Troubleshooting

A redirect doesn't work

• Check the source is a path starting with /, and that an older pattern redirect isn't matching first.
• Clear your page cache and test in a private window. Browsers cache 301s aggressively.
• Check a server-level redirect, such as one in .htaccess or your host's dashboard, isn't running first.

A redirect loops

Two redirects are pointing at each other, or a pattern redirect also matches its own target. Look for a contains or starts-with rule whose target contains the same text.

The 404 log is filling up

Lower the maximum number of entries, or clear the log after you've dealt with the important ones. Bot traffic often produces many one-off entries.