Anyone know much on in-page PHP coded redirects?

[sixthcitysarah]

Hi everyone, not sure if this is the right place to post this, and please feel free to refer me elsewhere if there is a similar forum that makes sense but...

We have a client who has 2 duplicate websites, 1 on Wix (main site) and 1 on BigCommerce (subsite). We want to move the main site to BigCommerce, but they only allow 1 domain, which we would make it their main site, and would need to redirect the subsite's page to new URLs.

Some of my team members figure that the only way we can do this on BigCommerce is with the on-page PHP 301's, but are unsure if they would work the same way as regular/htacess file redirects in terms of equity because don't want to lose the value of the subsite's backlinks.

Any experience with on-page PHP redirects and backlinks/SEO value would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[djbaxter]

PHP is a bit slower and uses more overhead than .htaccess since the page has to "load twice" to process the redirect, so if you have a choice I would always go with .htaccess (or cPanel redirect which does the same thing).

If you don't have a choice, you need to make certain that the PHP redirect specifies that this is a 301 redirect, "moved permanently". To do that, use this code:

<?php
// Permanent 301 redirection
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: https://www.yournewdomain.com/");
exit();
?>