Need some help with a tricky 301
-
I can't find anything online that deals with this issue. I have a page getting indexed by Google at mydomain.com/widgets and I don't know why. No links to it anywhere. The page it is closest to is mydomain.com/reviews/widgets and so I tried to set up a 301 to point one to the other.
The problem is each individual widget review is at mydomain.com/widgets/reviews/products/widget-name and so when I redirect /widgets to mydomain.com/reviews/widgets it also redirects each individual product to mydomain.com/reviews/widgets/reviews/products/widget-name.
Is there some way to just redirect /widgets without having it affect each product review? I cannot change URL structure either, nature of the site. Any ideas?
-
Hi Daniel,
Whenever I hear "Nothing is redirecting when I add this to the .htaccess file" I have one thought:
Is the site using Joomla, Drupal or some other CMS that will overwrite .htaccess rules externally?
Sha
-
Just not happening. I'm just not going to worry about it, thanks for your help
-
Gotcha. Try adding the rewriteengine on line directly above those two rules. That has to be present to trigger the mod_rewrite module. Hopefully that will solve the issue.
-
Yeah I took the ReweriteEngine On line out and just added the RewriteRule line in underneat that one. Although it doesn't say anywhere RewriteEngine On in the .htaccess file already, so not sure how that works.
-
Well, that's no fun. If there is already a line to initiate the rewrite engine, that 2nd 'rewriteengine on' reference could be a problem. I assume you took that out?
-
It is not working for me. Nothing is redirecting when I add this to the .htaccess file. First I added it as you suggested at the bottom of everything. Nothing happened so I added right after another line of code that was already in there that started with RewriteRule. This is the line that was already there:
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
Any idea what could be going wrong? Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Daniel - Are you using htaccess to handle your redirects. I think you'll need to employ some Regular Expressions to handle what you're trying to accomplish. As a guide, here is a very nice writeup on RegEx from - where else - SEOmoz: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-regex
so, in this case, i think what you'll want is:
RewriteEngine On
**RewriteRule ^widgets/?$ reviews/widgets [NC]**so, the caret (^) ensures that the url starts with widgets, while the dollar sign ensures that the redirect rule stops there (eliminating that pesky problem you encountered with the review pages also getting redirected). The ? just means that the trailing slash is optional.Hope that helps. If this solution isn't feasible, you could always hedge with rel="canonical" on the mydomain.com/widgets page and have that point to the proper page. That will at least help with Google.-Jason
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
-
Setting up 301 Redirects after acquisition?
Hello! The company that I work for has recently acquired two other companies. I was wondering what the best strategy would be as it relates to redirects / authority. Please help! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Colin.Accela0 -
Need help understanding "Clone sites"
I just read an article about Panda and it warned against against Clone sites: "Clone sites are a strong panda factor (JM, Mar 10, 2014)" I don't have any clone sites, but there are dozens of sites with imitations of mine. We were the first in the area of interest, and then all these other sites that imitated us popped up. None are exact replicas. But many have spun some of our articles and used them to create their sites; the site structures are not identical though. Google seems to know we are the original site on the topic since we are ranked #1 for most terms. Would these be considered clone sites in their eyes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0 -
I need help!
Please select best theme for me, from the below themes. I want to create printing website. I select these themes after long research. http://us-themes.com/demo/?theme=ImprezaWP http://themeforest.net/item/salbii-responsive-multipurpose-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/6265876 http://themeforest.net/item/codeus-multipurpose-responsive-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/6906054
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexanderWhite0 -
301 redirect rule
Hi there, I have a website that has hundreds of links with a "question mark" at the end of URLs. For example: http://www.domain.com/directory/page.html?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQandil
http://www.domain.com/directory/another-directory?
http://www.domain.com/directory/yet-another-directory/? I'm want to place a wildcard redirect on the .htaccess file but don't know what exactly to add. Ideally I want the URLs above to be: http://www.domain.com/directory/page.html
http://www.domain.com/directory/another-directory/
http://www.domain.com/directory/yet-another-directory/ Any help is most appreciated. Thanks
Issa0 -
Redirect help
I work for a company that has a domain that is something like www.neat-stuff.com but most people just use www.neatstuff.com without the dash. The redirect for the homepage works fine. We recently launched a new site and if you use www.neat-stuff.com/category it redirects from the old site to the new site just fine. However if you use www.neatstuff.com/category it does not properly redirect to www.neat-stuff.com/category. How do I fix that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
301 redirect
Hi there, I have some good links pointing to one of my web pages at the moment, however we are just about to launch a new design with new URL structure and I am clear that I need to do a 301 redirect on the URL to the new URL. However, do I keep the old URL live forever? or can I remove it after a while? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Whats Next, noobie needs some help :)
Hey Everyone, I have been a member of SEOMOZ for about 4 months and love it, it really has helped me out. my first website I am trying to get well ranked in the new zealand market is www.shopezy.co.nz I have chosen: sell online free ecommerce website ecommerce website builder Are paid links the way forward for me? should I aim for more keywords? should I pay for help? Just looking for a lttle direction, if someone could help. thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bonmaklad0 -
2-stage 301 redirects
Dear colleagues, I have quite an unusual situation with one of my client's websites, and I could use an advise from someone who experienced the same circumstances: They are currently planning on launching a new site under the same domain (by September), when several key current pages are intended to be replaced with new equivalent pages under new URLs. So far it's pretty simple, BUT - due to a merger with another company they will be migrating their entire website to a different domain within a year. My question is - what would be the optimal solution for redirects? We are considering a 301 from the current pages to the new pages under the same domain, and once the new domain is activated - aside from defining 301 redirects from the new pages under the same domain to the new domain, we will cancel the original 301 from the old pages to the new pages on the same domain, and instead define new 301 for those pages to the new domain. What do you think? Is there a better solution - like using 302 redirects for the first stage? Has anyone tried such a procedure? Your input will be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance, Omer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Usearch0