redirect 404 pages to homepage
-
Hello,
I'm puting a new website on a existing domain. In order to not loose the links that point to the varios old url I would like to redirect them to homepage.
The old website was a mess as there was no seo and the pages didn't target any keywords. Thats why I would like to redirect all links to home.
What do you think is the best way to do this ?
I tried to ad this in the .htaccess but it's not working;
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
Con you tell me how it exacly look?
Now the hole file is like this:
@package Joomla
@copyright Copyright (C) 2005 - 2012 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
@license GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
READ THIS COMPLETELY IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE THIS FILE!
The line just below this section: 'Options +FollowSymLinks' may cause problems
with some server configurations. It is required for use of mod_rewrite, but may already
be set by your server administrator in a way that dissallows changing it in
your .htaccess file. If using it causes your server to error out, comment it out (add # to
beginning of line), reload your site in your browser and test your sef url's. If they work,
it has been set by your server administrator and you do not need it set here.
Can be commented out if causes errors, see notes above.
Options +FollowSymLinks
Mod_rewrite in use.
RewriteEngine On
Begin - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits.
If you experience problems on your site block out the operations listed below
This attempts to block the most common type of exploit
attempts
to Joomla!Block out any script trying to base64_encode data within the URL.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode[^(]([^)]) [OR]
Block out any script that includes a
-
I'm very confused about where the 404 fits in - are these dead pages? To re-capture the link-juice, you'll need to 301-redirect (which it seems like you're also putting into play). In some cases, if the pages are gone or never existed, just let them be gone. If you take every single URL everyone could ever visit to the home-page, you may generate so many 301s that Google starts to get suspicious. We've seen some issues with this lately. In many cases, it's also just not a good user experience.
-
You should have RewriteEngine : RewriteEngine On and you should be able to access the .htaccess
have you tried using any of the tools in the URLs below
http://www.htaccessredirect.net/
&
This site talks about best practices of implementation you really just need to upload it to the FTP once you've made the changes using the tool in the URL above
http://www.ksl-consulting.co.uk/301-redirect-examples.html
Let me know if I can be of more help.
-
Ok, what Thomas is saying I will consider for some special pages but how do I technically do implement the redirects to home in .htaccess
ErrorDocument 404 /index.php is not working for now!
Is it correct?
RewriteEngine : RewriteEngine On
Do I have to ad something else to .htaccess ?
-
I think I have information that may help you Our little more I have comprised a hope will help you.
this tool will help you quite a bit in the described situation
http://www.htaccessredirect.net/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-fix-crawl-errors-in-google-webmaster-tools
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles3/spiders-301-redirect.htm
404 page should include a link back to the home page or site map of your website so users can quickly get back to what they were searching for. A search box, if you have a site search, is also a good idea to add to a 404 page. Other then that, keep the page minimal, remove distractions and get the user off the 404 error page as quickly as they got on.
Keep in mind most users may not be so savvy when it comes to Internet jargon so simple explanations in English are key! Although, keeping it minimalist does not have to mean "boring". The steps to make a custom 404 page are simple and this site can explain in detail how to create one depending on your server.
301 Redirects
If you have old pages on your website that you want to remove or rename, use a 301 redirect to preserve search engine rankings and pass on backlinks and/or page rank. You can even redirect whole websites into new ones. It is easy to do and is very search engine friendly.
The term "301" stands for "moved permanently". It is created by using a .htaccess file. Follow this guide to learn how to implement many different types of 301 redirects. When pages are deleted instead of redirected with a 301, they turn into 404s (Not Found Pages).
I want to give credit where credit's due this information directly above was referenced from this website http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/301.html
sincerely,
Thomas von Zickell
-
I would spread the redirects around as much as possible. If you can give link juice to not only your homepage but all pages your page rank and thus Google search rank will increase once the 301 redirects are indexed by Google. I agree strongly with what Sven Witteveen has said below and would be very inclined to agree with him.
I hope I was of some help to you.
Sincerely,
Thomas von Zickell
Blueprint Marketing
-
Thanks for advise but the home url is:
-
Hi Igrizio,
I'm not entirely sure but could it be that you're redirecting to //index.php instead of /index.php?
You can use this website to see the the statuscode and any redirect locations of a website.
Best of luck,
Sven Witteveen
Expand Online
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
-
Java redirect harm page authority?
Hello! Our website using JAVA redirect (legal reasons) , I noticed that pages that have JS redirect don't get the same page authority for example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Roi.Bar
The old home page have 60 PA while the new home page get only 22 PA I know that Google don't have problem with JS redirects and they passing all the juice like regular 301
but all SEO tools are straggling to understand it, why? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?0 -
301 from old site to new one , Should I point to home page or sub category page ?
Hey Seo Experts, I have a small website ranking for few terms like cabinets sale, buy etc . However what i have now decided is to launch a New website with more different products like living room furniture, wardrobes etc . Out of all these categories on new website Cabinets is one of the SubCategory . Now I do not want to have 2 websites . So wanted to 301 from small cabinets website to newly created website. Some of the doubts I have at the moment is ? 1 Should I REDIRECT 301 to sub category (i,e cabinets) which is purely related to Cabinets or Do a Redirect to HOME PAGE . As I also need more Authority to home page as well , as this is relatively new website ? 2 Second question related to this. If you have multiple sub domains does it divide the total authority & TF.Or it is just Ok to have multiple Sub domains if needed ? Any advice appreciated !! Thanks .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aus00070 -
Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search
Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos. When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed. The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such: domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results. This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent: * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos? I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona0 -
Too many on page links - product pages
Some of the pages on my client's website have too many on page links because they have lists of all their products. Is there anything I should/could do about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
What happens with a 301 redirected page?
Hi All, What happens with an indexed page that I 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is it removed from the Google index after a while? Thanks0 -
Problem with 404 and 500 Status code pages
Dear SeoMozzers, I have a question related to one of the sites I have recently changed the URL, going from http:example.com to http://www.example.com I did 301 redirects, as I was recommended to do. In the past month I have noticed an incredible drop in Google's rankings for many keywords and checking the crawling errors appearing in the SEO Crawling Report I have witnessed mayhem with Canonical/301 redirect types of errors. Now, things seem a little better. I have noticed a reduction in the number of 301 and Canonical type or errors (by the way, I still do not get the Canonical issue :-)). My little questions are the following: Will I ever go back to the positions I used to occupy before I redesigned the site's URL structure? I have now noticed that the SeoMoz Crawling report show "404 Staus" errors and one "505 Status" error. Can somebody please tell me how to fix the 404 Status Errors? Can I fix them by myself, or maybe I can ask the guys at the web hosting company, since I am really bad at taking care of technical issues? Thank you for the time you took to clarify my doubts. Ad maiora, Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Do I need a canonical tag on the 404 error page?
Per definition, a 404 is displayed for different url (any not existing url ...). As I try to clean my website following SEOmoz pro advices, SEOmoz notify me of duplicate content on urls leading to a 404 🙂 This is I guess not that important, but just curious: should we add a cononical tag to the template returning the 404, with a canonical url such as www.mysite.com/404 ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nuxeo0 -
How To 301 Redirect .html pages
I need to redirect a page/URL that is purely .html to a new location. I don't know how to do this. All the redirects I can find are for server side code pages .php/.aspx etc. From my understanding I can't put a server side redirect in a .html file. I am hosting on a microsoft server, however the new page I am redirecting to is .php. I am running some WordPress (.php) files on the server. I need to make it redirect before the old page loads so visitors don't start reading something that is about to get redirected Can someone please help me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyNet0