Hi Todd,

I think redirecting would be a much more user-friendly solution. Visitors won’t even know they are being redirected and it will be just like visiting the original page. It’s also better for SEO-purposes.

You won’t need to enter in 90 separate entries. You can use a “regular expression” or “regex” to write a pattern that will redirect all “.html” variations to non .html versions.

When I rebuilt my site recently in WordPress using the Ignite Plus theme, many URLs changed from “domain.com/directory/pagename.html” to “domain.com/pagename/”.

Consequently, search results that lead to pages indexed from the old site take visitors to the 404 page, which announces:

404: Page Not Found

Looks like nothing was found on this url. Double-check that the url is correct or try the search form below to find what you were looking for.

[search form]

Question: Should I set up redirects for the 90+ pages that have changed, or may I simply edit the 404 page to make it a little friendlier and more useful? What are the pros and cons of redirecting visitors vs. keeping the 404 page with some more friendly language and a handful of useful links? And how would I edit the 404 page?

Thanks for Article.