Set Up and Edit Redirects
Setting Redirects for URLs
You may setup redirects for urls that may be indexed in search engines or as links on third party sites.
This can be done using the "Redirects" module.
Step-by-Step Guide to Redirects
Once you have double-clicked on the Redirects module from your site's dashboard. You will be presented with a similar screen as the one below. There are no redirects in the example below. Click the +Add New option in the top right below the Search field to add a new redirect to your site.
If your site has multiple webs, then you will be presented with a screen where you can select the site for which you wish to add/remove redirects.
You will be shown a popup with the following field options:
| Source URL | This is the page on your site. E.g. /contact-us |
Source URL is a Regular Expression | When using normal redirects, you add a source and a destination URL. One source always points to one destination. Sometimes you want to redirect more than one source to a destination. In those cases you can use our REGEX Redirects. You can potentially break your site if you are inexperienced with REGEX. So keep this option unchecked. |
Targel URL | Enter the URL of the page you wish to redirect to. E.g. /contactus. If the target page is on an external site, you will need to include the "http://". E.g. http://www.google.com/analytics |
Redirect Type: Hidden | A hidden redirect will keep the url of the source page intact, but show the content of the target page. This is only possible for temporary and permanent redirects. In general, such redirects are not widely used and you should generally not have a need to use this type of redirect barring special case scenarios. Please do not create hidden redirects unless you are advised to do so. |
| Redirect Type: Temporary | As the name suggests, temporary redirects are temporary and may change in the future. So, if you want users to temporarily go from /about-us to /our-team for a select period of time, this is the redirect type you should use. |
| Redirect Type: Permanent | Permanent redirects are used in cases where a page, which used to be very popular is no longer active - very common on ecommerce sites, where a product becomes unavailable. However, as the page may be indexed high in search engines, it's necessary that the deactivated page does not go to a 404 page, but to something that is relevant to what the user expects to see. E.g. /cellphones can permanently redirect to /handheld-devices which will includes cellphones, ipads, and other similar devices. |
| Notes | This field is just for your reference and is only visible in the admin. You can add any notes to the redirect to understand why it was created, for how long, etc |
Here is an example of how to redirect to an external web page:
And now an example of how to redirect to a page within your own site:
Don't forget to click on "Save" to complete the setup of the redirect on your site.
Testing
As always, make sure you test/check on your changes on the frontend.
To check the redirect setup, go to the source URL page on your website, it should redirect you to the target URL immediately.
Setting Redirects for Full URLs
A full url refers to the full url of the page, for instance you may have a website that you no longer use, but would like to redirect the old website to a new domain.
For example, if you wanted to redirect: http://www.aspire-soft.com to https://www.aspiresoft.com, then you would put:
"http://www.aspire-soft.com" in the "Source URL" field
and
"https://www.aspiresoft.com" in the "Target URL field.
This would, however, only redirect people getting to the homepage http//:www.aspire-soft.com and would not include the https version of the site, nor any other page like http://www.aspire-soft.com/contactus
To set that both the secure and insecure versions of the site along with all pages of the old website go to the new website, then you need to make use of Regular Expression in the following manner:
Source URL: ^https?://www.aspire-soft.com
Source pattern type: checked for RegExp.
Target URL: https://www.aspiresoft.com
Troubleshooting
If you're unable to add a particular redirect, you may have that redirect already set.
If you have accidentally deleted a redirect, you can resurrect it by click on "Trash" in the lower right of the Redirects screen.
You should delete all items from the trash that you want deleted permanently to avoid any confusion in the future.
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