Redirect old URL's from referring sites?
-
Hi
I have just came across some URL's from the previous web designer and the site structure has now changed.
There are some links on the web however that are still pointing at the old deep weblinks.
Without having to contact each site it there a way to automatically sort the links from the old structure
www.mydomain.com/show/english/index.aspx
to just
Many Thanks
-
Hi Yes I think so, but is there a way to check/run a test?
UPDATE - Yes it is enabled its on Dreamhost
-
Does the apache have the mod rewrite installed?
-
Hi Robert
I am trying the following in a .htaccess file but the old URL is not redirecting to the root url?
RewriteEngine on
RedirectMatch 301 http://mydomain.co.uk/show/english/home.aspx http://www.mydomain.co.uk
RedirectMatch 301 http://www.mydomain.co.uk/show/english/home.aspx http://www.mydomain.co.uk
-
Sorry Ocelot, was tied up.
Here is a link to a moz resource from WebConfs.com
On moz here is another good resource page re redirects (where I pulled that link above from).
On WebConfs.com in the left sidebar is a redirect checker, once done put in your url and see how you did.
LMK if you get stuck.
-
Thanks Robert
But what is the correct code needed for the 301 in the .htaccess file as I am not getting this right at the moment! Been trying for the past few hours!
-
For yours, when you know the bad url is www.example.com/how-happened/dont-know
And you have a how-happened page on current site. In the .htaccess file put your 301 from bad link to current url and you will move any links as well.
-
Thanks again Robert!
How would you direct the old links to the relevant pages, as in my example of
www.mydomain.com/show/english/index. aspx
to just
Do you have any working examples that I could modify to suit my scenario above? Would this be done in a .htaccess file or in WMT? or could I just recreate the directory structure and file with a 301 to the new page?
-
Ocelot,
I would use Screaming Frog to spider the site. If you don't have, you should be able to download a free version from the web to whatever browser, etc. you use. When you open it, you will see where to put the domain and below that a row of buttons - use response codes to find what 404's you have. then click on them and use the links button at the bottom to see the links to those pages.
There is no blanket way to redirect the bad links if that is what you are asking. You can look at them in WMT and for the ones that have authority/get traffic, etc. you can redirect those to relevant pages and the others you need to have a good 404 page up that keeps them on the site.
Hope that helps,
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
-
URLs too long, but run an eCommerce site
Hi, When I started out I was pretty green to SEO, and didn't consider the usability/SEO impact of URL structure. Flash forward, I'm 5 years deep into using the following: mysite.com/downloads/category/premium-downloads/sub-category/ ("category" is quite literally one rung on the link - thanks, WordPress - however "sub-category" is a placeholder) I run a digital downloads store, and I now have 100s ofinternal links beholden to this hideous category linking structure. Not to mention external links at Google Ads, etc. I would LOVE to change this, but if I were to do so, what should I consider? For instance, is there a checklist for making a change like this? I was thinking of changing it to something like the following: mysite.com/shop/c/premium/sub-category/ And also, how much damage, if any, would this be doing to my SEO? Thanks in advance,
Technical SEO | | LouCommaTheCreator
Lou1 -
301 redirect from dynamic url to static page
Hi, i want to redirect from this old link http://www.g-store.gr/product_info.php?products_id=1735/ to this one https://www.g-store.gr/golf-toualetas.html I have done several attempts but with no result. I anyone can help i will appreciate. My website runs in an Apache server with cpanel. Thank you
Technical SEO | | alstam0 -
'domain:example.com/' is this line with a '/' at the end of the domain valid in a disavow report file ?
Hi everyone Just out of curiosity, what would happen if in my disavow report I have this line : domain:example.com**/** instead of domain:example.com as recommended by google. I was just wondering if adding a / at the end of a domain would automatically render the line invalid and ignored by Google's disavow backlinks tool. Many thanks for your thoughts
Technical SEO | | LabeliumUSA0 -
What's the correct SEO for a Gallery?
Hi there, I was wondering if anyone was an expert on galleries and using canonical URL's? URL: http://www.tecsew.com/gallery In short I'm doing SEO for a site and it has a large gallery (3000+ images) where each specific image has it's own page and each category (there's 200+) also has its own page. Now, what I'm thinking is that this should be reduced and asking Google to index/rank each page is wrong (I also think this because the quality of the pages are relatively low i.e little text & content etc) Therefore, what should be suggested/done to the gallery? Should just the main gallery categories get indexed (i.e http://www.tecsew.com/3d-cad-showcase)? Or should I continue to allow Google to trawl through all of it? Or should canonical URL's be used? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Best Wishes, Charlie S
Technical SEO | | media.street0 -
New Website, New URL, New Content - What do we do with the old site? Are 301's the only option?
We've just built a new site for a client. They were adamant on changing the url. The new site is entirely new content, however the subject mater is the same. Some pages are even titled very similarly. Is is advisable to keep the old site running, and link it to the new site? Permanently, or temporarily? Do we simply place redirects from the old site the new? Old site was 30 pages, new site is 80 pages. So redirects won't be available to all the new pages. It seems a shame to trash the old site, it is getting some good traffic, and the content - although outdated is unique and of a high quality. Old url is 4+ yrs old, the new url is new. Some enlightened opinions would be greatly welcomed. Thanks
Technical SEO | | MarketsOnline0 -
Canonical tags pointing at old URLs that have been 301'd
I have a site which has various white label sites with the same content on each. I have canonical tags on the white label sites pointing to the main site. I have changed some URLs on the main site and 301'd the previous URL to the new ones. Is it ok to have the canonicals pointing to the old URLs that now have a 301 redirect on them.
Technical SEO | | BeattieGroup0 -
Google Confusion: Two Sites and a 301 Redirect.
Hi, We have a client who just sprang a new project on us. As always, they went ahead and did some stuff before bringing us into the loop! (oh the joy of providing SEO services!) Anyway, i'm pretty swamped right now and need some extra brains on this. Basically the client had www.examplesiteA.com online for many years (an affiliate site which had built up a strong brand in the industry). They have now decided to turn this affiliate site into a full blown service platform and so with the new site being built they 301'd the whole thing over to www.examplesiteB.com - this is where they want all the old affiliate content to be hosted. So essentially examplesiteA.com is now examplesiteB.com and a new site is being placed on examplesiteA.com - still with me? So this has all happened and a brand new website is on examplesiteA.com and the old examplesiteA is now sitting exactly as it used to, but on the examplesiteB domain. The 301 redirect has been removed and the new examplesiteA seems to have been crawled, but the homepage is not indexed. When you search for examplesiteA, examplesiteB is the top result. Now they are similar domain names and to be fair I have very little data at this point i.e. I don't know when the 301 redirect was removed and it maybe that this all fixes itself with time. How is link equity effected now that examplesiteA.com was 301 redirected to examplesiteB.com and cached in this way, but now the 301 redirect has been removed and does not exist? Would link juice have been diluted throughout the process? Obviously if we had been in on all this before anything was implemented we would have done things differently. Interested to hear what others would do coming in at this point. Thanks and look forward to the advice!
Technical SEO | | MarcLevy0 -
Redirect Flash Site for Google Only - Is this against TOS?
A photographer client has a flash website, purchased as from a (well respected) template company. The main site is at the root domain, and the HTML version is at www.example.com/?load=html If I visit the site on a browser without Flash installed, I am re-directed automatically to the HTML version. I'm concerned as the site has some great links and the HTML version is well optimised, but doesn't appear anywhere in Google for chosen keywords (ranks perfectly for brand related searches). Google is indexing the Flash version of the site, but I would rather it didn't (there's no real content (just Javascript to load the SWF) and all of the pages load under one URL). How can I block the Flash version from Google but still make the incoming links count towards the HTMl version of the site? If I re-direct Google to the HTML version, is this cloaking, and is it frowned upon? Thanks for any advice you can offer.
Technical SEO | | cmaddison0