Note: The Redirect Map is open to the team only for now, so it is not on your rail and opening it shows This area is being worked on. This guide describes what it does for the team accounts that have it.
The Redirect Map tool builds the 301 map for a site migration: every old URL resolving in one hop to a live, relevant new destination. It matches old to new with an eight-rung ladder (exact path first, then progressively fuzzier matches, each with its own confidence score), simulates the result to catch loops and chains, and generates the server config to implement it.
Two rules are always enforced: the tool never maps a page to the homepage as a lazy fallback (an unmatched page is reported as unmatched), and the generated config rule count must equal the actionable row count — the run fails loudly rather than shipping a partial map.
Run it before a domain change, a URL-structure change, or a redesign that moves pages. Run it again after launch: the Validation tab exists so you can verify the promise held once the redirects are live.
Note that if nothing about your URLs is changing, you don't need this tool — and it will tell you so. Entering the same domain twice on identical URLs produces zero redirects, because a page that didn't move needs no rule.
Build a redirect map
To build a redirect map:
- Go to
Toolsand pickRedirect Map. - Choose the mode that matches your migration:
Domain change: Enter the old domain and the new domain; the tool crawls both.Same domain: Paste the list of old URLs that are changing.Manual: Paste both old and new URL lists yourself.
- Start the run and wait for the workbook. Runs take up to 5 minutes.
Read the workbook
The workbook has seven tabs, in working order:
| Tab | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Summary | Inventory sources used, match-rate, and what needs a human |
| Redirect Map | Every mapped old URL, its target, and the match confidence |
| Needs Review | Low-confidence matches to approve or correct by hand |
| Orphans | Old URLs with no good new home — decide, don't ignore |
| Retire | Junk and dead-weight URLs that should 410 rather than redirect |
| Validation | The post-launch checks and their status |
| Server Config | Apache, Nginx and Next.js rules, plus a rollback set |
Work the Needs Review tab before shipping: a low-confidence match is flagged for your judgment, by design. Chains found in your existing redirects are collapsed to one hop — legacy rules get remapped to final targets rather than stacked.
Limits and usage
- Rate limited to 5 runs per minute per account; a run stops at 5 minutes.
- Crawl-based modes inventory what the crawler can reach plus your sitemaps. Old URLs that only exist in GSC history, analytics, or backlink data are a named blind spot in the Summary tab — add them via Manual mode if they carry traffic or links.
- The tool generates config; it doesn't deploy it. You ship the rules.
If something isn't working
"Zero redirects" on a same-domain run. The URLs you pasted normalize to identical addresses (trailing slashes, www., and tracking parameters are all canonicalized first). Nothing moved, so nothing needs a rule.
A page you expected mapped shows in Orphans. No rung of the ladder found a confident match. Map it by hand in the sheet — the alternative, forcing it to the homepage, is exactly what the tool refuses to do, because Google treats mass homepage redirects as soft 404s.
Redirects live, rankings still dropped. Open the Validation tab and run its checks. The usual finding is a chain introduced by an old rule outside the map, or a target that itself now redirects.
Related guides
- Review indexability with the GSC audit — run it after migration to confirm Google followed the moves.
- Fix an audit that failed or came back empty
- Read your audit report and grade