How does an SEO company handle redirects?

By deciding, for each URL that changes, whether the move is permanent or temporary, setting the redirect up on the server where possible, sending each old address to its closest real equivalent, and then checking what the server actually returns. Redirects keep visitors and search engines from dead ends when pages are renamed, merged, moved, or retired. Done carelessly, they send people to irrelevant pages and leave Google indexing the wrong address, so a company treats them as routine work with real consequences.

Permanent or temporary

Google’s guide to redirects and Google Search frames the choice by what you want shown in search results: a permanent redirect for the new address, a temporary one for the original. For a permanent redirect, such as a 301 or 308, it says that “the indexing pipeline uses the redirect as a signal that the redirect target should be canonical.” For a temporary one, such as a 302, 303, or 307, the redirect is not used that way, though “The target page might still be indexed if other canonicalization signals are present.” The guide’s own example of a temporary case is a service that is briefly unavailable, with visitors sent to a page explaining what is happening.

So a company uses permanent redirects for retired pages, renamed URLs, merged content, and domain changes, and keeps temporary redirects for moves that really will be reversed. A temporary redirect left in place for a permanent change withholds that canonical signal from Google.

How the redirect is set up

The same guide orders redirect methods by how likely Google is to interpret them correctly, with server-side redirects first. Meta refresh redirects come next, and it advises using JavaScript redirects only when neither a server-side nor a meta refresh redirect is possible. Platforms such as Shopify or Blogger may have built-in redirect tools, which a company should use rather than work around.

Where each old address goes

Each old URL is mapped to the page that now best answers what it used to answer: a retired product to its replacement or its category, an outdated article to the current version of the same topic. Sending every removed page to the homepage is not a mapping. When no reasonable equivalent exists, letting the old URL return a 404 or 410 tells visitors and search engines the truth.

Chains, loops, and internal links

A chain is a redirect that leads to another redirect; a loop sends requests back where they started. Search Console’s Page indexing report lists the redirect errors Google reports: a chain that was too long, a loop, a redirect URL that grew past the maximum URL length, and a bad or empty URL in the chain. A company flattens chains so every old URL points straight to its final destination, breaks loops first because they make a page unreachable, and updates internal links, canonical tags, and sitemaps to use the final URLs, so the site stops relying on its own redirects.

Checking the result

The intended setup is not proof, so the company requests each old URL and records the status code and final destination the server returns, before launch on a test environment where one exists and again after. In the Page indexing report, a redirecting URL appears as “Page with redirect”, which Google describes as “a non-canonical URL that redirects to another page”, so a rise in that status after a planned change is expected, while a rise in redirect errors needs fixing. Redirects belong in routine maintenance, because platform updates, plugins, and content changes can add new chains over time.