Pop quiz: do you know where your URL redirects are? All of them? If one of them stops working, or you want to check in on how one is performing, would you be able to track it down right away?
For many organizations that have a significant online presence, the answer is no. The URL redirects are often spread out across various tools and services, from:
- In-house files and/or servers
- Legacy systems
- A third-party IT service provider
- Domain provider
- DNS provider
- Link shorteners
Sometimes an important URL redirect stops working, and between IT and marketing, no one’s sure where it lives and how to address it. If you’re managing company wide URL redirects in many places, here are a few reasons why you should think about centralizing your URL redirects.
1. Know Where Your URL Redirects Are
First and foremost, while URL redirects are usually reliable, they may still break or need to be updated depending on performance or change in marketing campaign. It’s crucial that 301 redirects, especially cross-domain redirects, always work. However, sometimes, depending on how the URL redirects were set up, they can break. If you don’t have visibility into the status at a glance, you may risk losing website traffic, unable to get critical messaging across to your intended audiences. Having all redirects under one roof means not having to track it down. If it’s on one service, editing a redirect is hassle-free, and managing performance is a breeze.
2. Single Source of Truth
Like other shared knowledge assets, it is considered best practice for organizations to have a “single source of truth” for data. This includes URL redirects. Many companies place the responsibility of URL redirection onto their IT teams. Marketing may ask for it, but IT implements it. Often, it’s a matter of setting and forgetting it. Over time, whether it’s a change of systems, staff turnover, or even mergers and acquisitions, these URL redirects can be misplaced and forgotten. Centralizing them ensures that everyone who needs to see or edit them, not just the IT team, has visibility and access to do so.
3. Relieve Workload Off of Busy IT Teams
Setting up a URL redirect can be quite technical, and therefore, assigned to IT teams. Depending on the need, the volume of redirects can become quite substantial, requiring more time and effort from IT teams already working on a wide range of tasks. Marketing teams usually make these requests and then need to wait on IT. Centralizing your URL redirects allows IT to continue to take ownership of URL redirection, while giving marketing teams autonomy to make changes to the destination URL, freeing up capacity for IT teams. IT teams can set and forget the technical component of URL redirection, and marketing can manage them moving forward.
4. Consolidating Services Creates Efficiencies
URL redirects can be spread out over different services depending on which team has the need and/or sets it up. In bigger organizations, departments might be using different services that may be redundant. A single service that can be used company-wide might be more efficient. Domain providers and DNS providers, for example, may not provide the analytics components, or the secure HTTPS to HTTPS redirects. These separate services can add up over time and can also create confusion between teams.
URL redirection is an internet utility that you depend on and need to trust will continue working after you’ve set it up. If you’re already using URL redirection at your organization, chances are that you could benefit from centralizing them. Sign up for a free urllo trial today and see how simple it can be to manage all of your URL redirects in one place.
By Sarah Ellis
VP, Business Development
Sarah is a passionate sales and management leader with over two decades of experience in the start-up, technology, real estate and music/advertising sectors. Sarah started her entrepreneurial journey years ago when she founded and ran her own bakery. Which is why she’s still the premier source of baked goods inside the urllo office.
