Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect
-
Hi all I hope that someone can help....
How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect
The url in question is:
How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect
http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/bedfordshire-weddings/franklin-park
http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/chorley-weddings/curtis-bay
etc, going to http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business
the above is just a few examples, google webmaster is showing over 8.000 404 page not found errors.
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi Denverish, thanks for your reply, been months since i looked at this problem. It has returned so trying to sort it out. the redirects mentioned did not work. so any suggestions.
The CMS allows for 301 redirects via a form; place old url at the top of the form and the new url at the bottom and save,
But as I am trying to create a wildcard 301 redirect, i am not sure what code to place in these fields..see pic
tai
-
Hi Tai, were you able to implement Matt's suggestions?
-
Hi Tai! Any update on this issue? Please let us know so we can help! Thanks.
Christy
-
Hi Matt, sorry for the delay in getting back.
Just working on your suggestions, I will let you know if it works
T
-
Using the redirectmatch directive to redirect the entire deal directory to deals should definitely work for your situation. You then just repeat for each - so for deals:
RedirectMatch 301 /deal/(.*) /deals/$1
-
Hi Matt,
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^listing/(.*)$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/ [R=301,L]Did not work,
other urls flagged up in Google WM are/deal/ new: /deals/
http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/buckinghamshire-weddings/newport-beach
http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deals/
thanks Matt
-
Hi Tai,
I understand what you are saying in regards to making it easier with all the different URLs, however you will need to specify some start point in terms of being one level down from the domain root else you are effectively placing a wildcard on the whole domain, which wouldn't work when you are still working on this domain. So you need to try to identify the few main category URLs such as /listing and so on in order to create a rule.
Did the redirect I give you work for all URLs apart from the one listed? It should have worked for that.
An alternative you can try is:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^listing/(.*)$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/ [R=301,L] -
Hi Matt, thanks again.
Yes we are trying to redirect old urls to the relevant pages.
As we have so many old urls from old cms system which had different url structures, to do a wildcard to catch all 404s would be great. (wordpress plugin wp redirection achieves this http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/)
RedirectMatch 301 ^/listing/.*$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business
But it did not redirect
http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/essex-weddings
Thanks for your time on this.
Regards Tai
-
Hi Tai,
I had a look at your site homepage and from your examples I could see you have relative urls which can cause 404 errors and as you mentioned 8000 I thought this could be part of your problems - no domains in your main navigation links so /business rather than www.yourdomain.com/business in coding - so no base URL can cause this. I took one of your links you mentioned to check if your hrefs were relative.
Putting what I mentioned aside for a second do you just want anything that is /listing and /deal redirecting to /business?
Have you tried this for the listing example and repeat for the others such as /deal/:
RedirectMatch 301 ^/listing/.*$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business
-
Hi Matt, and thank you for your response.
Not sure if i understand the solution to this problem though. The http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/......./ are from old legacy urls, and we have many. I am not sure why google webmaster is still picking up these old urls. but having 8k old not found urls is a worry.
Regards Tai
-
You can fix this issue much easier than trying to sort out redirects in htaccess. You are coming across this issue because your site uses relative URLs rather than absolute.
Example:
A relative URL isn't tied to a base URL so:
/business
Absolute would be:
www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business
Using relative means that when you visit a page your link is relative to that location so if I was on
www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business and visited the same llink it would become
www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/business unless redirected.
Having to fix this issue in htaccess can get messy for this and it would be much simpler to change your nav links in the template of your site. I checked this was the case in your sites source code to be certain and you definitely use relative URLs.
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
-
Multiple H1s and Header Tags in Hero/Banner Images
I work on education websites, and our sites are being flagged by SEO and accessibility checkers for having multiple H1s. The home pages have the site name as an h3 in the hero image, and an aspirational headline (think: Be Like Mike) as an H1. The sub-pages have two H1s: one on the site name in the banner image, and the other on the page title. Note that the site name is very keyword-rich. If we were to remove the H1 and H3 tags from the hero/banner images, would it do any SEO harm? At the same time, we’d rewrite the H1 on the home page to be more keyword-focused. Any other options? I also read that it’s OK to have multiple H1s as long as it’s clear which H1 belongs to the heading area and which one belongs to the body area of the page. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | UWPCE0 -
Canonicalising a product with multiple variants
I am working with an ecommerce site and have encountered an issue I haven't come across before and would appreciate some advice on how to proceed. There are multiple variation products with one master product and then up to 20 or 30 variant products, the variation could be colour, size or both. The site has been set up to canonicalise all the variations to the master variant product, which I understand to be best practice. But, this is where the issue occurs, the master variant product URL 302 redirects to one of the variant product URLs. Example below. My question is, is this harmful to our SEO efforts? Would be be best to canonicalise to a preferred colour or size variation? EXAMPLE: Master variant product: www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123 Seeing this product on the page and clicking will 302 redirect to www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 On page www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 the canonical tag is www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123 Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | SimonKenworthy0 -
Naked domain redirection info
Hi Guys Been reading one or two posts about 'naked domains' v the 'www' derivative and was wondering... What is your opinion on this, is there a definitive benefit to your business in making the switch in terms of ranking? Apart from the Google released info, do you have any further recommended reading on this subject matter? Thanks in advance Daren
On-Page Optimization | | ITsoldSEO0 -
Multiple menu items pointing to same page
I have an automotive dealer as a client. The primary nav has a finance menu item, which (of course) points to the finance related pages. He just requested that I add a finance link item, as child menu items, under the new and used car nav items. Now, this is wrong for a host of reasons, what is the best way to communicate to this to him? I mean, I see this as a usability issue, it's wrong thematically, we would end up having 3 links pointing to the same page. Would this classify as dupe content?
On-Page Optimization | | AfroSEO0 -
How many Anchor text i can make on One page.
I would like to have clear answer in numbers i.e. 1, 2, 3, or 4 etc. of how many Anchor text i can make on One page.????
On-Page Optimization | | 1akal0 -
SEO can id and class be used in H1?
Can ID and class be used in my H1 tag. I realize best case would be to change it, but it's going to require a change order from the ecommerce company to fix their sloppy code. Will this hurt seo? Example:
On-Page Optimization | | K-WINTER0 -
How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
I have a client who recieved this advice from his marketing consultant: "If there are multiple h1 tags on a page, this can confuse Google and it may have a negative impact on the keyword rankings. If you could ask your web developer to go in and remove the h1 tags on the header images that would be helpful. This way it will be easier for Google to index your site and will help your keyword rankings." How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
On-Page Optimization | | GRIP-SEO0 -
Do you think using accordion text can hurt SEO?
I have a lot of text for my home page. My plan is to a J Query Plugin for accordion text. Does anyone think that this can hurt SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | | DTOSI1