A redirect map is a spreadsheet or file that lists each old URL alongside the new URL it should redirect to. It is built before a migration, URL restructure or content consolidation, reviewed by SEO and engineering, and then turned into server or CDN redirect rules. A complete map is what lets links, bookmarks and search signals follow pages to their new addresses.
Building the URL list
No single source holds every URL that matters, so combine several and remove duplicates.
- A full crawl of the current site
- XML sitemaps, current and old
- Pages with clicks or impressions in Search Console
- Landing pages with sessions in analytics
- URLs with backlinks from your link tool of choice
- Server logs, for URLs crawlers still request
Choosing destinations
Map each URL to the most relevant equivalent page. One-to-one mapping is ideal. When pages are merged, several old URLs can point to one new page. When content is removed with no replacement, a 404 or 410 is more accurate than a redirect to an unrelated page. Use pattern rules for predictable groups, such as every blog post moving from /blog/YYYY/slug to /blog/slug, and explicit rules for everything else.
old_url,new_url,status
/product/features/payroll,/payroll,301
/blog/2023/onboarding-checklist,/blog/onboarding-checklist,301
/legacy/partner-portal,,410Testing the map
Before launch, run the old URLs against staging and check that each returns a single redirect to a 200 page. After launch, run the same list against production. Check for chains, loops and redirects to pages that are noindexed or canonicalized elsewhere.
Example
Consolidating overlapping guides
Fernquill has four older posts covering interview scorecards from slightly different angles. The team merges them into one guide and adds four rows to the redirect map pointing to it, plus a fifth row for a related template page that keeps its URL. Search Console later shows the old URLs as redirected and the guide as the indexed page.
Common mistakes
Mapping only top pages
Long-tail pages with a few backlinks each add up. Include every URL with links or traffic.
Forgetting existing redirects
Old redirects pointing to URLs that now move create chains. Update them to point at the final destination.
Questions
Both are permanent. Google treats them the same. 308 preserves the request method, which matters for APIs and forms more than for pages.
