Solution for Wordpress URL structure changes and 301 redirects?

Question

After a major site review, we've created a new link and category structure to better accommodate URLs and content for the long-term. While we roll out the change, we need to avoid broken links and SEO issues because our category structure is changing.

While best practice is to implement a 301 redirect, is there a solution to automatically redirect all previous categories? Or at least handle it in an efficient way within Wordpress Admin?

Why this isn't a duplicate: This is focused on category changes, not just a few changed URLs.

Thanks.

Answer 1

For a large number of redirects, using your .htaccess file is the way to go (assuming you're using apache). If you aren't doing an unreasonable number of redirects and want control within WordPress' Admin, the aptly named Simple 301 Redirects is a great option.

Answer 2

Check out the Redirection Plugin, personally I love it. The log feature is great for keeping an eye on any pages you might have missed and it can do regex redirection through wordpress, or .htaccess...I've heard it works on ngnix as well but have never had the opportunity to test that, so YMMV.

If that's not an option, just go .htaccess and do it by hand, you'll needa regex it or it'll be a MESS (for example, redirect /old-category/* to /new-category/* rather than /old-category/page1/ to /new-category/page1/ and /old-category/page2/ to /new-category/page2/)