Implement 301 redirects for any URL changes

When you change a URL on your Webflow site — whether you're cleaning up a slug, fixing a typo, or restructuring pages — you need a 301 redirect in place before the old URL stops working. Not a few days later. Before.

A 301 is a permanent redirect. It tells browsers and search engines that the page at /old-url now lives at /new-url. Most of the link equity the old URL built up passes through to the new one. Without it, you've deleted a page from Google's index, lost any backlinks pointing to that URL, and created a dead end for anyone who had it bookmarked.

In Webflow, 301 redirects are under Site Settings → Hosting → 301 Redirects. Old path on the left, new path on the right. Add the redirect first, then change the URL. That way there's no window where the old URL returns a 404.

What to audit before going live: run Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) or SEMrush's Site Audit on your staging environment and look for pages where the URL will change. Common triggers include renaming a collection item slug, reorganizing folder structure, fixing inconsistent URL patterns, or removing dates from URLs that previously had them. For each URL change, add a redirect before publishing.

If you're launching a redesigned site with significant URL changes across the board, create a redirect map in a spreadsheet first: old URL, new URL, confirmed. Work through it before going live. This matters most when the old site had indexed pages with backlinks — those links represent authority you don't want to lose to a 404.

Two things to watch once you're live. First: redirect chains. A chain where /old → /intermediate → /new adds extra latency. Keep it to one hop. If you need to update a destination URL, edit the original redirect rather than adding another layer.

Second: stale redirect destinations. It's easy to add a redirect, then later change the destination URL without updating the redirect. Now the redirect points to a 404. GSC's Coverage report will surface these as "Redirect error." A monthly check of your redirect list takes five minutes and prevents these from quietly building up.

Webflow makes redirect management easier than most platforms. But it still requires discipline. Every time you change a URL, log it: old path, new path, date. Over time, this becomes a record of your site structure — and a safeguard against breaking pages that are already ranking.