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Redirects & SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, the practice of helping search engines like Google understand and rank your website so that more of the right visitors find you. You do not need to be a marketing expert to benefit from good SEO; SitePack builds many of the technical basics in automatically, and this guide covers the parts you control directly: redirects and page-level SEO settings.

What is a URL redirect, and why does it matter?​

Every page on your website has its own web address, called a URL (for example, yoursite.com/old-product-name). A redirect automatically sends visitors (and search engines) from an old URL to a new one whenever a page's address changes or the page is removed.

Redirects matter because, without one, anyone who clicks an old link (from Google, a bookmark, or a shared link) will land on a broken "page not found" error. That is a poor experience for visitors and can hurt your search engine rankings, since search engines dislike sending people to dead links.

Creating a URL redirect​

Whenever you rename a page's URL or delete a page that used to exist, set up a redirect right away to avoid broken links:

  1. Go to Content → Redirects in your Admin Portal.
  2. Click Create Redirect.
  3. Old Slug: Enter the previous URL path exactly as it was, the part after your domain name (for example, old-product-name).
  4. New Slug: Enter where visitors should now be sent. This can be a path on your own site (for example, new-product-name) or a complete external web address.
  5. Choose a Redirect Type:
    • 301 (Permanent): Tells search engines the page has moved for good, and transfers the old page's search ranking value to the new one. This is the right choice for almost all situations, including renamed pages, discontinued products, or restructured sections of your site.
    • 302 (Temporary): Signals that the move is short-term, for example, temporarily pointing a page to a seasonal promotion. Search engines will not permanently transfer ranking value to the new destination, since they expect the original page to return.
  6. Hits Tracking: SitePack automatically counts how many times each redirect has been used. Reviewing this over time helps you see which old links are still actively bringing in traffic, which can be useful when deciding what content to prioritize keeping alive.

SEO best practices inside SitePack​

Beyond redirects, a handful of simple, ongoing habits make a real difference in how well your site performs in search results.

Meta titles & descriptions​

Every individual page and blog post has its own meta title and meta description, editable directly within that page's editor. These are the blue, clickable headline and the short line of gray text that appear in Google's search results for your page.

  • Write a meta title that clearly and specifically describes what the page is about. Think of it as a short, honest headline written for someone scanning a list of search results.
  • Write a meta description as a brief, compelling summary (roughly one to two sentences) that gives someone a reason to click through to your page rather than a competitor's.

Search engine visibility​

If your website is still under construction, or you are testing changes you do not want the public to find yet, you can temporarily block search engines from indexing your site.

  • Go to Settings → General and enable Block Search Engines.
  • While this is turned on, search engines are asked not to list your pages in their results at all.
  • Remember to turn this setting back off once your site is ready to go live. A site left blocked indefinitely will never appear in search results, no matter how well the rest of your SEO is set up.

To keep a single page out of search results instead of the whole site, open the page and turn on Exclude this content from search engines in its search engine settings. This works for normal pages and template pages. The page stays reachable for visitors, but it is marked as not to be indexed and is left out of your sitemap.

Readability and AI assistants​

Under the search engine tips in the editor you get three extra groups, each with its own coloured dot:

  • Readability looks at how easy your text is to read: the average sentence length, sentences over 25 words, paragraphs over 150 words and whether subheadings break up longer texts.
  • AI assistants looks at how easily assistants such as ChatGPT or AI search answers can pick up and quote your page: a short summary at the start, subheadings phrased as questions, lists, and concrete facts or figures.
  • Sounds human looks for signs that text reads as generated: long dashes (— or –), stock phrases such as "seamless" or "crucial", sentences that are all the same length and sentences that keep starting with the same word.

These tips need a few paragraphs of text before they can judge anything. They are suggestions, separate from the search engine score: a page can score well for search engines while you still work on its readability.

Clean, descriptive URLs​

The path portion of a URL (called a "slug") should be short, readable, and describe the content of the page, both because it helps visitors understand what a link leads to before they click it and because search engines use it as one small signal of relevance.

  • Prefer yoursite.com/wooden-garden-chairs over yoursite.com/product-8213.
  • Use hyphens to separate words, avoid unnecessary numbers or symbols, and keep slugs reasonably short.

Changes reach search engines automatically (IndexNow)​

When you publish a new page, change a product or remove a blog post, SitePack lets search engines know for you through IndexNow. IndexNow is a shared notification system used by Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep: one signal from SitePack reaches all of them, so they can visit the changed pages sooner instead of waiting for their next routine crawl.

You do not have to set anything up. There is no account to create, no code to add and no file to upload; SitePack proves to these search engines that the website is yours and takes care of the rest.

  • What gets sent: only the addresses of pages that are new, changed or removed, including the translated versions of a page. Unchanged pages are not sent again.
  • How fast: changes are usually passed on within an hour.
  • When nothing is sent: while Block Search Engines is turned on, while your site shows a coming soon page, and while your domain is not yet connected to your website. Pages you excluded from search engines are left out as well, because they are not in your sitemap.
  • Google: Google does not take part in IndexNow. It keeps finding your changes through your sitemap, which SitePack also keeps up to date automatically.

IndexNow asks search engines to come and look; it does not guarantee that a page is listed or how high it ranks. Good titles, descriptions and content still decide that.

Frequently asked questions​

What happens if I delete a page without setting up a redirect?​

Visitors who follow old links (from search engines, bookmarks, or shared links) will land on a "page not found" error. Setting up a redirect avoids this and preserves as much of the page's search ranking value as possible.

Should I use a 301 or 302 redirect?​

Use a 301 (Permanent) redirect for almost every situation: renamed pages, retired products or restructured content. Reserve 302 (Temporary) redirects for genuinely short-term changes, such as briefly redirecting a page during a seasonal campaign.

What is the difference between a meta title and the page's main heading?​

The main heading (H1) is the title visitors see displayed on the page itself. The meta title is what appears as the clickable blue headline in search engine results. The two can be worded the same way, but the meta title should be optimized for how someone might search for your page.

How do I stop search engines from finding my site while I'm still building it?​

Turn on Block Search Engines under Settings → General. Just remember to disable it again once you are ready to launch, or your site will remain invisible in search results.

Does SitePack handle any SEO automatically?​

Yes. Technical basics such as secure HTTPS connections, your sitemap and letting search engines know about changes through IndexNow are handled automatically by SitePack. Page-level details (titles, descriptions, and redirects) are the parts you control directly, as covered in this guide.

Do I need to submit my pages to Bing myself?​

No. SitePack passes new, changed and removed pages on to Bing and the other IndexNow search engines automatically, usually within an hour. You can still add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools if you want to see reports about your search performance there, but it is not needed for your changes to be picked up.

How often should I check my redirects?​

There is no strict schedule, but it is good practice to review your Redirects list whenever you restructure a section of your site, and periodically check the hits tracking to see which old URLs are still receiving traffic.