# Redirects

> Forward an old address to its new page, retire addresses that are gone for good, and move a whole list of old URLs at once with CSV.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/project-settings/redirects/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

---
The **Redirects** tab (in the **Search & Marketing** group) decides what happens when someone
opens an address your site no longer uses — a renamed page, a deleted post, or a URL from the
site you had before you moved your domain to Genesis.

A redirect reaches your live site **within about a minute of saving**. You don't need to
publish again.

## Why it matters

Without a redirect, an old address doesn't show an honest "not found". It opens your site
with an empty page inside it, and search engines treat that as a live page. The old URL keeps
its place in search results, the links other sites made to it lead nowhere, and your new page
has to earn its ranking from scratch.

A redirect fixes that in one of two ways:

| You choose | Visitors | Search engines |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **A new address** | Are sent straight to the new page. Any tracking parameters in the link (`?utm_source=…`) are kept. | Move the old address's ranking to the new one over a few weeks (**301 — moved permanently**). |
| **The address is gone** | See a "not found" page. | Drop the address from results (**410 — gone**), faster than an ordinary 404. |

## Add a redirect

1. **Old address** — the address that stopped working, e.g. `/old-page` or
   `/blog/old-post`. You can paste the whole URL from your browser; only the path is kept.
2. **New address** — click the field and choose one of your pages or posts from the list,
   or paste any link, including one on another website.
3. Click **Add redirect**.

To retire an address instead, open the **New address** list and choose the first item,
**Nothing replaces it — the address is gone**. The button changes to **Mark as gone**.

:::tip
Sending old addresses to your home page is tempting, but search engines treat that as a missing
page — the ranking is lost either way. The panel warns you when you do it. If there's no real
replacement, mark the address as gone instead.
:::

The panel also warns you when the new address is a path where none of your pages or posts
lives — otherwise the redirect would lead to a missing page. Check the address before saving.
(Some pages, like blog category pages, aren't in that list, so for them the warning can be
safely ignored.)

## Redirects Genesis adds for you

You don't have to remember to add a redirect when you change a URL yourself:

- **Renaming a page or a blog post** adds a redirect from the old address to the new one.
- **Deleting a page or a post** marks its address as gone.

These show up in the list with **A rename** or **A deletion** next to them, and you can edit or
remove them like any other.

## Manage the list

Each row reads `old address → new address`, with the status and who added it underneath. Point
at a row to see its actions:

- **View** — opens the old address on your live site, so you can check the redirect works.
- **Edit** — change either address in place.
- **Remove** — the old address goes back to whatever your site shows there. A removed redirect
  can't be restored; add it again if you need it.

A search box appears once you have more than ten redirects.

### When Genesis asks before saving

- **The address already redirects somewhere.** You'll be asked whether to **Replace** it or
  **Keep existing**.
- **A page or post of your site is live at that address.** Redirecting it takes that page off
  your live site for visitors and search engines (the page itself stays in your project), so
  you're asked to confirm.
- **You try to mark a live page as gone.** That isn't allowed — visitors would still see the
  page. Delete the page instead; its address is marked as gone automatically.

## Move many addresses at once (CSV)

Use **Import** and **Export** at the top of the list.

**Import** takes a CSV file from your computer — for example a Google Sheets or Excel sheet
saved as CSV, or a list of URLs exported from your old website or from Google Search Console:

```csv
Old address,New address
/blog/old-post,/blog/new-post
/old-page,https://partner.com/landing
/retired-page,
```

- Two columns: the old address, then the new one. **Leave the second column empty** to mark the
  address as gone.
- The header row is optional. Commas, semicolons and tabs all work as separators.
- Full URLs are fine — only the path is kept.
- Up to **500 rows** per file.

Before importing you can choose to **replace redirects that already exist** for these addresses,
and to **also redirect addresses where a live page or post is today**. After the import you get
a result for every row — added, replaced, or skipped and why — which you can download as a CSV,
fix, and import again.

**Export** downloads every redirect in the same format, so you can edit the list in a
spreadsheet and import it back.

## Moved your domain from another website?

When your domain starts pointing at Genesis, every address your old website used stops working
at once — often dozens of blog posts. To keep what they earned in search:

1. Collect the old addresses — from your old site's sitemap, from **Google Search Console →
   Pages**, or from your old blog.
2. Put them in a CSV. Give the posts you rewrote in Genesis their new address, and leave the
   rest empty so they're marked as gone.
3. **Import** the file, then check a few rows with **View**.
4. In Google Search Console, submit your new sitemap (`https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml`) so
   Google re-reads the site sooner.

## Good to know

- **Your sitemap stays clean.** From your next publish, addresses you redirect are left out of
  your sitemap and your blog's RSS feed, so search engines never see an address listed there
  that then redirects.
- **Redirects survive publishing.** Publishing again never brings an old page back at a
  redirected address.
- **Update your own links too.** A redirect covers links you forgot, but search engines prefer
  direct links — point your menus and buttons at the new address.
- **The home page can't be redirected.** It's the one address your site always has to answer.
- **Up to 5,000 redirects** per site.
- **Redirects belong to your main site.** A secondary app in the same project can store them,
  but they start working only once that app can publish on its own.
