SHORT ANSWER
A redirect mapping tool pairs every url of an old site with its equivalent on the new one, so the list can be imported as 301 redirects. The tools differ in three ways that matter: whether they crawl the sites themselves or need url lists you export, whether they match on the url and title or on the page content, and which import format they write. We make one of them, Silentfrog; every other entry below is described from the tool’s own pages as of 24 september 2026.
Dedicated redirect mapping tools
Built for this one job. Only some of them crawl; the others start from url lists or crawl exports you bring.
| tool | input | matches on | price (as listed 24 september 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silentfrog (ours) | crawls old and new site, plus sitemaps | exact path, then slug, title and h1 | free up to 50 pages; 46 € or 150 € per relaunch |
| redirection.io redirect map generator | crawls old and new site | url structure, page content, metadata (local ai model) | 3 crawl credits per mapped url; credit packs from €22 |
| URLMatcher | file upload (csv, excel, json) or crawl | exact, path, title, structure, content — in stages | 7-day trial, then from €19.95 / month |
| Redirect Buddy | csv or excel upload | embeddings, fuzzy matching, structure | free up to 500 urls; $15 once for 5 000 |
| The Redirect Tool | two csv files | old list against new list | about €0.02 per redirect |
| Redirects by WISLR (Shopify app) | bulk url data | maps onto Shopify pages | free up to 150 urls; $49 / month |
Free tools in the browser
No signup, no crawl — you paste or upload the old and new url lists. Good for a quick first pass when you already have clean lists. Both export .htaccess, nginx and csv.
| tool | input | matches on | price (as listed 24 september 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Stox: Redirect Map Builder | pasted lists, csv, Search Console or Ahrefs exports, a sitemap url | exact path, path without extension, same last slug or id, token similarity | free |
| Growthack URL Redirect Mapper | pasted or uploaded url lists | slug similarity, shared words, text similarity — urls only | free |
Scripts and Colab notebooks
Free and flexible, and the most transparent about how they match. They expect crawl exports of both sites — in most write-ups from Screaming Frog, whose free version stops at 500 urls — and a little comfort with Python or Google Colab.
| tool | input | matches on | price (as listed 24 september 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automated Redirect Matchmaker (Daniel Emery) | two Screaming Frog exports | sentence embeddings of the page content | free (Google Colab) |
| FuzzyMatch (Sally Mills) | one excel file, old and new sheet | fuzzy string matching on urls | free (Google Colab) |
| Fuzzy matching notebook (MLforSEO) | csv of 404 urls and csv of live urls | several fuzzy string libraries on urls | free (Google Colab) |
| Automated redirect mapping app (Tyler Gargula) | two Screaming Frog exports | title, h1, h2 and url | free |
SEO crawlers: useful before and after, not for the map
Screaming Frog SEO Spider — no dedicated mapping feature. Its migration tutorial uses near-duplicate detection as a base to check by hand, and a 2025 tutorial uses vector embeddings; both need a licence (£199 / $279 / €245 per year). Details in Silentfrog vs Screaming Frog.
Sitebulb — its migration guide uses the crawler for planning and for re-crawling to check that redirects resolve; it does not describe generating a map.
Ahrefs and Semrush — both audit redirects — chains, loops, broken targets. Their migration guides (Ahrefs, Semrush) use them to collect urls before and check after; the mapping in between is done by hand.
Spreadsheets deserve their own mention: for a small site they are all you need (spreadsheet vs automated).
How to choose
- do you have complete url lists already? If not, pick a tool that crawls and reads sitemaps, or you will map only what the navigation still links to.
- did the pages keep their names? Then url, title and h1 matching is enough and fast. If whole sections were rewritten under new names, content matching with embeddings finds pairs that url matching cannot.
- where does the file go? Webflow, Shopify, WordPress plugins, Squarespace and servers each want a different format and a different wildcard notation. A tool that writes yours saves a reformatting step on every export.
- is it one relaunch or many? A one-off project suits a per-project or pay-per-url price; an agency doing several a year may prefer a subscription or a one-time licence.
- who checks it afterwards? No mapper replaces a crawl of the old urls against the live site after go-live; plan it with the tool you already have.
In short
- Dedicated mappers that crawl both sites: Silentfrog, redirection.io, and URLMatcher optionally.
- Content-based matching: redirection.io, URLMatcher, Redirect Buddy and the embedding scripts.
- Free: Patrick Stox's and Growthack's browser tools, the Colab notebooks, and the free tiers of Silentfrog and Redirect Buddy.
- Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Ahrefs and Semrush collect and audit urls; none has a dedicated old-to-new mapper.
- Whatever builds the map, the doubtful pairs still need a person, and the live redirects still need a check.