301 Redirect "wildcard" question
-
I have been looking at the SEOmoz redirect guide for some advice but I can't seem to find the answer : http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection
I have lots of URLs from a previous version of a site that look like the following:
etc etc.
I want to write a redirect so whenever a URL with the terms "-c-25.html" is requested it redirects to a specified page, regardless of what comes after the question mark.
These URLs were created by our previous ecommerce software. The 'c' is for category, and each page of the cateogry created a different URL. I want to do these so I can rediect all of these URLs to the appropraite new cateogry page in a single redirect.
Thanks for any help.
-
When I did a similar transition with hundreds of thousands of links. I created a database table with source and destination columns. Then a script that handles all 404 requests. If the requested link matches an entry in the source column, the user is sent a 301 to the matching destination entry. That allowed for easier maintenance than a huge htaccess file and the server load caused by te script should go down over time as 301 are saved and you contact site owners to update links. The other benefit is that you can do enhanced tracking to see what is request, found and not found and where those people came from.
-
An easy way is to use RedirectMatch, example:
RedirectMatch 301 /-c-25.html http://www.domain.com/new-category
Drop the above in a .htaccess file, test it works how you expect first
-
OK, If I make it the first redirect then the redirection works - regardless of what is written after the 'c-21.html'.
However the redirect is retaining the erroneous URL data after redirection. It is adding the '?blahblahblah" to the end of the new URL. I want it to dispose of this so all the redirects are routed to just one URL. How do I instruct it to not include this unwanted data in the new URL?
Thanks
-
Order matters in Rewrites. You will have to place that Rewrite Rule above the others.
-
I thought that may do it but still nothing. Maybe I am entering it wrong? Here is the code in .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /test/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L
]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /test/index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^-c-21.html(.*)$ http://www.mysitename.com/test/category/t-shirts/dolphin_tshirts [R=301,L
]
The redirect just doesn't happen.
EDIT: If I write a standard redirect : Redirect 301 /test/-c-21.html then it will redirect to the desired page but it will retain the ?blahblah and add it to the new URL. I want it to work like this but discard the ?blahblahblah after redirecting.
-
If you need these to be 301 redirects...
RewriteRule ^-c-25.html(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/dolphin_tshirts [R=301,L]
-
Just to calrify I need a URL that has
/-c-25.html?blahblahblah
to change to:
/dolphin_tshirts
Regardless of that is written in the blahblahblah part.
-
I think that would probably work for him, assuming that the category IDs remain the same.
-
Would something liek this work:
RewriteRule ^-c-(.).html(.)$ category/$1.html$2 [R,NC]
I've not tested it, nor do I claim to be an expert, but I think it will work for what you're tryign to acheive - e.g. -c-25.html becomes category/25.html
-
If your site is in PHP, you could simply add the code...
$targetURL = "http://www.sitename.com/whatever-page-you-what";
if(stristr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],"-c-25.html")) {
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: $targetURL");
}
?>
If you don't have access to PHP, you could add a line like this to your HTACCESS file...
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} (c-25.html) [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://www.sitename.com/your-target-page [L,R=301]Someone might want to double check me on that rewriteRule above, though.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link juice and 301 redirects
Hi, I have a page with a lot of links going to it. I want to change the name of the page (thereby changing the URL). I can do a 301 redirect, but does a 301 send the "link juice" to the new page? The page in question is www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html, and I want to change it to www.aerlawgroup.com/dui-lawyer.html. Thank you in advance for your time.
Technical SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Redirecting a questionable domain to a trusted domain
I have a question!
Technical SEO | | FDFPres
We have 2 domains operating within the same retail sector. One of them is for our bricks and mortar business and the other is a new brand we launched as a nationwide e-retailer. We aggressively built links for the new one and achieved some very good search positioning, where we remained for about 4 months until the google updates of the first half of this year started biting. The domain never received a warning from google or anything, but the links have clearly been devalued to a point where the domain is now virtually buried for the most competitive terms. However, the domain does still get around 100-200 visitors per day, and has a DA of 38. We're thinking about a reshuffle that would involve putting the products in to our brick and mortar business website, and redirecting the brand domain to the bricks and mortar domain. Thank you for reading this far! the question is then, is there a danger of the bricks and mortar domain being tarnished by this? as i said the brand domain hasn't had any notices of penalty from google but it has definitely been hit by updates.0 -
301 redirect from Blogger
Hello, I have a client with a Wordpress network of blogs, each blog is owned by a different blogger. Many of them were migrated time ago from Blogger. I have seen that the way used to redirect them is a meta refresh, so no authority is being passed. I cannot find any reliable way of making a 301 from Blogger, There are some plugins, but I'm afraid of using them. Any of you have experience with this situation please? I have even thought about placing a global rel canonical before the meta refresh, but I think that here the problem is the meta refresh itself.... Thank you in advance
Technical SEO | | Juandbbam0 -
Does 301 redirect cause penalty
Good Morning, I am considering doing a 301 (permanent) re-direct of roughly 100 domains, split between my 3 main e-commerce sites. Would taking an action like this put any of the 100 domains or any of the 3 recipient domains at risk of violating G's guidelines? Thanks...
Technical SEO | | Prime851 -
Need Help writing 301 redirects in .htaccess file
SEOmoz tool shows me 2 errors for duplicate content pages (www.abc.com and www.abc.com/index.html). I believe, the solution to this is writing 301 redirects I need two 301 redirects 1. abc.com to www.abc.com 2. /index.html to / (which is www.abc.com/index.html to www.abc.com) The code that I currently have is ................................................... RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | WebsiteEditor
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^abc.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.abc.com/$1 [R=301,L] Redirect 301 http://www.abc.com/index.html http://www.abc.com ...................................................... but this does not redirect /index.html to abc.com. What is wrong here? Please help.0 -
How to 301 redirect via OpenCms/7.5.4
Hi everyone, My programmer told me it is impossible to do a permanent redirect from www.website.com/index.html to www.website.com due to cms technical limitation which I do not want to believe hence is it possible / is there documentation available instructing on how to do a proper 301 permanent redirect on OpenCMS 7.5.4? Thanks a lot! Steve
Technical SEO | | sjcbayona-412180 -
301 Redirect
Hi there, We are re-branding & re-structuring our website, there will be quite a number of 301 re-directs, possibly hundreds. The question is: Should i wait until the re-branding has been completed and do al the 301's in one go?, or should I try and do 301's as i go along? Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | Paul780 -
Redirect or not to redirect
We are rebuilding a website and try to get rid of errors. The content remains exactly the same but we correct the code and make it load faster. The site has quite many backlinks and I can't decide whether to remove .html endings from the urls and 301 redirect to the new ones or leave them with the older ending. If I remove the endings how much of the link juice will be passed? Anyone any idea?
Technical SEO | | sesertin0