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.
301 redirect syntax for htaccess
-
I'm working on some htaccess redirects for a few stray pages and have come across a few different varieties of 301s that are confusing me a bit....Most sources suggest:
Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
or using some combination of:
RewriteRule + RewriteCond + RegEx
I've also found examples of:
RedirectPermanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
I'm confused because our current htaccess file has quite a few (working) redirects that look like this:
Redirect permanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
This syntax seems to work, but I'm yet to find another Redirect permanent in the wild, only examples of Redirect 301 or RedirectPermanent
Is there any difference between these? Would I benefit at all from replacing Redirect permanent with Redirect 301?
-
There is no difference between "Redirect 301", "Redirect permanent" and "RedirectPermanent". It is clear from mod Alias documentation:
"This directive makes the client know that the Redirect is permanent (status 301). Exactly equivalent to
Redirect permanent
." "permanent - Returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that the resource has moved permanently."But, these directives are really confusing, because they are not page to page, but directory to directory. For example:
Redirect 301 /a-very-old-post/ http://yoursite.com/a-very-new-post/
Surprisingly, it will redirect all old subpages to new subpages. In particular it will redirect /a-very-old-post/page1 to /a-very-new-post/page1 Therefore better to use RedirectMatch or RewriteCond+RewriteRule for page by page redirections and for redirections with query strings.
Links to docs: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14099_19/web.1012/q20206/mod/mod_alias.html
Link to simple RedirectMatch page by page redirects generator: RedirectMatch generator for htaccess https://www.301-redirect.online/htaccess-redirectmatch-generator
Link to good RewriteRule generator: htaccess 301 redirect rewrite generator https://www.301-redirect.online/htaccess-rewrite-generator
-
In **apache **"permanent" "RedirectPermanent" is the same as "Redirect 301"
By default, the "Redirect" directive establishes a 302, or temporary, redirect.
If you would like to create a permanent redirect, you can do so in either of the following two ways:
- Redirect 301 /oldlocation http://www.domain2.com/newlocation
- Redirect permanent /oldlocation http://www.domain2.com/newlocation
Page to Page 301 Redirect Generator for Htaccess
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/
If no <var>status</var> argument is given, the redirect will be "temporary" (HTTP status 302). This indicates to the client that the resource has moved temporarily. The <var>status</var> argument can be used to return other HTTP status codes:
<dl> "permanent" & "Redirect 301"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that the resource has moved permanently.</dd>
"temp"</dl>
<dl>
<dt>Returns a temporary redirect status (302). This is the default.</dt>
"seeother"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a "See Other" status (303) indicating that the resource has been replaced.</dd>
"gone"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a "Gone" status (410) indicating that the resource has been permanently removed. When this status is used the <var>URL</var> argument should be omitted.</dd>
</dl>
**https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_alias.html **
https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/
To 301 Redirect a Page:
RedirectPermanent /old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html
To 301 Redirect a Page:
Redirect 301 /old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html
https://i.imgur.com/PTEj5ZF.png
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/
Single URL redirect
Permanent redirect from pageA_.html_ to pageB.html.
.htaccess:
301 Redirect URLs.
Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/page-to-page/
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 /pageA.html /pageB.html</ifmodule>https://www.htaccessredirect.net/
//Rewrite to www
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^site.com[nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.site.com/$1 [r=301,nc]//301 Redirect Old File
Redirect 301 /pageA.html /pageB.htmlYou asked about Regex
https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204643270/using-htaccess-rewrite-rules
.htaccess
Regular expressions
Rewrite rules often contain symbols that make a regular expression (regex). This is how the server knows exactly how you want your URL changed. However, regular expressions can be tricky to decipher at first glance. Here's some common elements you will see in your rewrite rules, along with some specific examples.
- ^ begins the line to match.
- $ ends the line to match.
- So, ^folder1$ matches folder1 exactly.
- . stands for "any non-whitespace character" (example: a, B, 3).
- * means that the previous character can be matched zero or more times.
- So, ^uploads.*$ matches uploads2009, uploads2010, etc.
- ^.*$ means "match anything and everything." This is useful if you don't know what your users might type for the URL.
- () designates which portion to preserve for use again in the $1 variable in the second string. This is useful for handling requests for particular files that should be the same in the old and new versions of the URL.
See for more regex
- http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html#Regular-Expressions
- https://www.askapache.com/htaccess/mod_rewrite-variables-cheatsheet/
- https://www.askapache.com/htaccess/
Hope this helps
Tom
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 redirect adding trailing slash to url
I am looking into a .htacess file for a site I look after and have noticed that the urls are all 301 redirecting from a none slash directory to a trailing slashed directory/folders. e.g. www.domain.com/folder gets 301 redirected to www.domain.com/folder/ Will this do much harm and reduce the effect on the page and any links pointing to the site be lessened? Secondly I am not sure what part of my htaccess is causing the redirect. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.co.uk [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
Technical SEO | | TimHolmes
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.domain.co.uk/$1 [L,R,NE] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.php
RewriteRule ^(.)index.php$ /$1 [R=301,L] or could a wordpress ifmodule be causing the problem? Any info would be apreciated.0 -
301 Redirects Relating to Your XML Sitemap
Lets say you've got a website and it had quite a few pages that for lack of a better term were like an infomercial, 6-8 pages of slightly different topics all essentially saying the same thing. You could all but call it spam. www.site.com/page-1 www.site.com/page-2 www.site.com/page-3 www.site.com/page-4 www.site.com/page-5 www.site.com/page-6 Now you decided to consolidate all of that information into one well written page, and while the previous pages may have been a bit spammy they did indeed have SOME juice to pass through. Your new page is: www.site.com/not-spammy-page You then 301 redirect the previous 'spammy' pages to the new page. Now the question, do I immediately re-submit an updated xml sitemap to Google, which would NOT contain all of the old URL's, thus making me assume Google would miss the 301 redirect/seo juice. Or do I wait a week or two, allow Google to re-crawl the site and see the existing 301's and once they've taken notice of the changes submit an updated sitemap? Probably a stupid question I understand, but I want to ensure I'm following the best practices given the situation, thanks guys and girls!
Technical SEO | | Emory_Peterson0 -
Redirect URLS with 301 twice
Hello, I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this. We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND. However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result. The problems I see are these unless he redirects again: The new simplified URLS have to start from scratch to rank 2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page. I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these: Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice? If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
A script to automatically write 301 redirect rules to htaccess?
I was wondering if anyone could help provide some resources on how to automatically write 301 redirect rules to htaccess. Allow me to explain... I'm building a new website and the primary users are businesses. They have their own profile pages on the site. The URL is based off of their Company Name. In the event that they decided to change their name... reasons being, perhaps they mispelled it the first time, or they're removing LLC or adding Inc, I want to also change the URL and redirect the old URL to the new URL. Since the URL is based off of their Company Name, making a change to the company name would make a change to the URL. I know it doesn't have to work this way, but for our purpose this works best. In case the old URL had any links to it, I wanted to see if there was an way to automatically update an htaccess file with a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. Could anyone point me in the right direction of how to do this? Perhaps a sample script. I've done a lot of searches on Google and can't seem to find anything. e.g. Original:
Technical SEO | | bimmer540
Name: XYZ Widgets
URL: website.com/xyz-widgets New - business changes their company name in their profile:
Name: XYZ Widgets, Inc.
URL: website.com/xyz-widgets-inc Upon the user saving the changes in their profile, I'd like to write a 301 redirect to an htaccess file:
Redirect 301 /xyz-widgets http://www.website.com/xyz-widgets-inc I know how to manually write redirects and I've got a pretty smart web developer. We've just never triggered a script to automatically write to an htaccess file before. Is this possible? Any resources are appreciated. Any security risks? Thanks!0 -
Delete 301 redirected pages from server after redirect is in place?
Should I remove the redirected old pages from my site after the redirects are in place? Google is hating the redirects and we have tanked. I did over 50 redirects this week, consolidating content and making one great page our of 3-10 pages with very little content per page. But the old pages are still visible to google's bot. Also, I have not put a rel canonical to itself on the new pages. Is that necessary? Thanks! Jean
Technical SEO | | JeanYates0 -
Does it really matter to maintain 301 redirect after de-indexing of old URLs?
Today, I was reading latest blog post on SEOmoz blog about. Uncrawled 301s - A Quick Fix for When Relaunches Go Too Well This is very interesting study about 301 & How it useful to maintain traffic. I'm working on eCommerce website and I have done similar stuff on my website. I have big confusion to manage 301 redirect. My website generates new URLs due to following actions. Re-write dynamic URLs. Re-launch entire website on different eCommerce platform. [osCommerce to Magento Commerce] Re-name category. Trasfer one product from one category to another category. I'm managing my 301 redirect with old practice. Excel sheet data from Google webmaster tools and set specific new URLs for redirect. Hoooo... Now, I have 8.5K redirect in htaccess... And, I'm thinking it's too much. Can we remove old 301 redirect from htaccess or not? This is big question for me. Because, all pages are not hyperlink on external website. Google have just de-indexed old URLs and indexed new URLs. So, Is it require to maintain 301 redirect after Google process?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Is it worth setting up 301 redirects from old products to new products?
This year we are using a new supplier and they have provided us a product database of approx. 5k products. About 80% of these products were in our existing database but once we have installed the new database all the URLs will have changed. There is no quick way to match the old products with the new products so we would have to manually match all 5k products if we were were to setup 301 rules for the old products pointing to the new products. Of course this would take a lot of time. So the options are: 1. Is it worth putting in this effort to make the 301 rules? 2. Or are we okay just to delete the old product pages, let the SE see the 404 and just wait for it to index the new pages? 3. Or, as a compromise, should we 301 the old product page to the new category page as this is a lot quicker for us do do than redirecting to the new product page?
Technical SEO | | indigoclothing0 -
Double 301 redirect
Hi together, due to some technical reasons I have redirect (301) an existing link two times. Example: www.mydomain.com/root/site.html > 301 > www.mydomain.com/site.html > 301 www.mydomain.com/site_new.html Is there anybody how has got some experience like doing a double redirect? What about link juice? Best regards Steffen
Technical SEO | | steffen_0