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.
Can I make 301 redirects on a Windows server (without access to IIS)?
-
Hey everyone,
I've been trying to figure out a way to set up some 301 redirects to handle the broken links left behind after a site restructuring, but I can only ever find information on 2 methods that I can't use (as far as I can tell). The first method is to do some stuff with an htaccess file, but that looks like it only works on Linux-based servers. The method described for Windows servers is generally to install this IIS rewrite/redirect module and run that, but I don't think our web hosting company allows users to log directly into the server, so I wouldn't be able to use the IIS thing.
Is there any other way to get a 301 redirect set up? And is this uncommon for a web hosting company to do, or do you all just run your sites on Linux-based servers or your own Windows machines?
Thanks!
-
This is a really common problem on shared Windows IIS-based hosting, Brian.
In addition to the web.config method Oleg mentions, there's another method if it's only for a few specific pages.
This method involves actually having a "placeholder" page on the server at the old URL. You then add a script to provide the 301 redirect. (Or just replace the content of the origianl page, if it's still on the server.)
For example:
On ASP.net you would create the page oldpagename.aspx and its content would be:
On ASP you'd create the placeholder oldpagename.asp and its content would be:
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "www.mydomain.com/newpagename.aspx"
%>Obviously this method doesn't scale as easily as the web.config method, but it's generally easier if you're just dealing with a few pages every once in a while.
Paul
-
Can I create a web.config file, or is that something that needs to be set up by the hosting company (or at least whoever has access to IIS)? I suppose I could just call the hosting company (as Irving recommended).
Thanks, guys!
-
Try this. It uses the web.config file which is accessible via FTP.
-
Have you called the hosting company? They may say that you need to switch to a Linux box, and they migrate everything over for you. Or maybe they can help you get your redirects in place on their end.
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 Redirecting from domain to subdomain
We're taking on a redesign of our corporate site on our main domain. We also have a number of well established, product based subdomains. There are a number of content pages that currently live on the corporate site that rank well, and bring in a great deal of traffic, though we are considering placing 301 redirects in place to point that traffic to the appropriate pages on the subdomains. If redirected correctly, can we expect the SEO value of the content pages currently living on the corporate site to transfer to the subdomains, or will we be negatively impacting our SEO by transferring this content from one domain to multiple subdomains?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
301 redirects Ruby on Rails
Can anyone point me to the best way to implement 301 redirects on a Ruby on Rails website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianvest0 -
Several 301 Redirects to Same Page
Hi, I have 3 Pages we won't use anymore in our website. Let's call them url A, url B and url C. To keep their SEO strength on our domain, I've though about redirecting all of them to url D. For what I understand, when 301 redirecting, about 85-90% of the link SEO juice is passed. Then, if I redirect 3 URLs to the same page... does url D receive all the link SEO juices for URLs added up? (approximately)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
e.g. future url D juice = 100% current url D juice + 85% url A juice + 85% url B juice + 85% url C juice Is this the best practice, or is there a better way? Cheers,0 -
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
Question about moving content from one site to another without a 301
I could use a second opinion about moving content from some inactive sites to my main site. Once upon a time, we had a handful of geotargeted websites set up targeting various cities that we serve. This was in addition to our main site, which was mostly targeted to our primary office and ranked great for those keywords. Our main site has plenty of authority, has been around for ages, etc. We built out these geo-targeted sites with some good landing pages and kept them active with regularly scheduled blog posts which were unique and either interesting or helpful. Although we had a little success with these, we eventually saw the light and realized that our main site was strong enough to rank for these cities as well, which made life a whole lot easier, not to mention a lot less spammy. We've got some good content on these other sites that I'd like to use on our main site, especially the blog posts. Now that I've got it through my head that there's no such thing as a duplicate content penalty, I understand that I could just start moving this content over so long as I put a 301 redirect in place where the content used to be on these old sites. Which leads me to my question. Our SEO was careful not to have these other websites pointing to our main site to avoid looking like we were trying to do something shady from a link building perspective. His concern is that these redirects would undermine that effort and having a bunch of redirects from a half dozen sites could end up hurting us somehow. Do you think that is the case? What he is suggesting we do is remove all of the content that we'd like to use and use Webmaster Tools to request that this content be removed from the index. Then, after the sites have been recrawled, we'll check for ourselves to confirm they've been removed and proceed with using the content however we'd like. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LeeAbrahamson0 -
301 v/s 302 Redirection on Homepage (Multilingual)
Hello, Our website: http://www.luxresorts.com currently has a default 302 redirection to http://www.luxresorts.com/en. We would like to do a 301 redirection instead of a 302 to http://www.luxresorts.com. Our concern is that the site is multilingual and we wonder what effect would the 301 redirection have on search engine crawlers and how would this appear on SERP. When a search is done on Google.com, the English version of our website appears and when on Google.FR, the French version appears. Would the 301 redirection change the way our website appear on Google? Grateful if you could help us out in understanding the pros and cons/best practices for our concern. Thanks in advance. Tej Luchmun.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts0 -
.htaccess 301 Redirect Help! Specific Redirects and Blanket Rule
Hi there, I have the following domains: OLD DOMAIN: domain1.co.uk NEW DOMAIN: domain2.co.uk I need to create a .htaccess file that 301 redirects specific, individual pages on domain1.co.uk to domain2.co.uk I've searched for hours to try and find a solution, but I can't find anything that will do what I need. The pages on domain1.co.uk are all kinds of filenames and extensions, but they will be redirected to a Wordpress website that has a clean folder structure. Some example URL's to be redirected from the old website: http://www.domain1.co.uk/charitypage.php?charity=357 http://www.domain1.co.uk/adopt.php http://www.domain1.co.uk/register/?type=2 These will need to be redirected to the following URL types on the new domain: http://www.domain2.co.uk/charities/ http://www.domain2.co.uk/adopt/ http://www.domain2.co.uk/register/ I would also like a blanket/catch-all redirect from anything else on www.domain1.co.uk to the homepage of www.domain2.co.uk if there isn't a specific individual redirect in place. I'm literally tearing my hair out with this, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Townpages0 -
Is 301 redirect suggested on pagination pages
Hi - Due to pagination the default page of site is coming in 2 url with - ?page=1/ sub-url and /sub-url is 301 a recommended solution due to this pagination urls Also - is it required to create separate title and meta description of every pagination page We are taking specifically in context of our discounts and offer section http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_offers&view=list&Itemid=9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0