Redirect old URL's from referring sites?

[ocelot]

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

www.mydomain.com

Many Thanks

[ocelot]

Hi Yes I think so, but is there a way to check/run a test?

UPDATE - Yes it is enabled its on Dreamhost

[RobertFisher]

Does the apache have the mod rewrite installed?

[ocelot]

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

[RobertFisher]

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.

[ocelot]

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!

[RobertFisher]

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.

[ocelot]

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

www.mydomain.com

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?

[RobertFisher]

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,