If you had your site hosted elsewhere, 301 redirects are useful to tell the search engines where your pages are.  For example, if you had a page called http://www.mywebsite.com/blog_page.php you would want to make sure the search engines knew to look to http://www.mywebsite.com/blog on your new site.  Otherwise the search engines would see that page is no longer available and remove it from the indexing.

How to:

1. Login to your website.
   
   
2. On the My Website button on the admin bar at the top, click on Settings.
   
   
3. Click on the ADVANCED tab.
4. Click on Launch the Redirect Manager below the 301 Redirection heading.
   
   
5. There are two options to choose from, Add Redirect and Import Sitemap.
   
   
6. Add Redirect-  To add a single 301 redirect, click “Add Redirect” below. In the box labeled “Redirect this URL...” enter the absolute URL of the page you wish to redirect. For example, if you wish to redirect http://www.mywebsite.com/blog_page.php, you would simply enter /blog_page.php.  Then in the dropdown labeled ...to this page or shortcut, select the page you want it redirected to.  Lastly, click the Add button.
   
   
   
7. Import Sitemap- If you have an XML sitemap such as might be generated for use in search engine optimization, you can choose “Import Sitemap.” To import a sitemap click the browse button to search for your XML sitemap that you are pulling in from your old site and click the upload button.  Once you have uploaded your XML file you will need to choose the New Page that each of your old pages need to be pointed to.