.htaccess newby
-
Sorry to ask a really dumb question. I want to sort out a load of old 404 errors. I've exported the list of URL and I'm more than happy to go through that and work out what needs to go where.
After that my only option at the moment is to use the re-direct function in my WordPress install and do all the work manually. There are loads to do so I want to be able to upload all the re-directs.
I know I need to create a htaccess file and upload it. I know where to upload it.
This is where I get nervous. I need to get this file right. Is there a really obvious idiots file which I can use and then save as the correct file type? I've got all the URLs in a CSV at the moment.
Sorry for being a bit thick. Hope you can help.
-
Tested and all working!
-
Thanks for that.
All done now, fingers crossed!
Richard
-
Yeah, that looks to be the right file. So, in this case, I'd put the new redirects right after the current redirect.
redirect permanent /index.html http://www.global-lingo.com/index.php
PUT NEW REDIRECTS HERE
BEGIN WordPress
Let me know if that works!
-
Got one.
This is the content - not certain that's what I need?
redirect permanent /index.html http://www.global-lingo.com/index.php
BEGIN WordPress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule>END WordPress
-
Ah, I see what you are saying. You want to download the one from the site root for redirects. Typically, that is going to be something like a /public_html or /httpdocs folder. Do you have an htaccess file there?
-
That's what I want to do. But I can't be sure I have the right file. There are .htaccess files in a few folders
Thanks for bearing with me Matthew
-
Hey -
Glad you got everything in the right format!
Can you download your current .htaccess file via FTP? I'd download that and then add the new redirects at the bottom of the file and then upload the file. Be sure to save a backup of the htaccess file before you make changes.
Let me know if that works? Thanks,
Matthew -
Ok now I'm stuck again!
I have the list, in the right format, thanks to Matthew.
I can see where to upload the file, but now I'm worried that it will replace all my existing redirects. From the WordPress site I can't see where I can export all the existing redirects so that I could at least add my new ones to the existing ones and upload a new file.
Any ideas guys?
-
Brilliant, thanks Matthew
-
Hey Richard,
You are really close! In column A, do a find for "http://www.global-lingo.com" and replace with nothing. That way you are left with:
A = /news/2009/12/news-internet-translations/
B = http://www.global-lingo.com/blog/
C = redirect 301 /news/2009/12/news-internet-translations/ http://www.global-lingo.com/blog/
Thanks,
Matthew -
Hi Matthew,
Sorry, pretty nervous now!
Here's what I have in the columns
A = http://www.global-lingo.com/news/2009/12/news-internet-translations/
B = http://www.global-lingo.com/blog/
C = redirect 301 http://www.global-lingo.com/news/2009/12/news-internet-translations/ http://www.global-lingo.com/blog/
I think I got a little lost with the full URL in column A. What should I remove? Or have a got it correct? Sorry to use the real URL I just want to make sure I get this correct.
Thanks
Richard
-
Hi Matthew,
That is the perfect answer, thank you so much. Just creating the file was where I was getting stuck and knowing what to put in the columns.
what I have at the moment is:
Column A = 404 url
Column B = URL I want
That solution is perfect, I'm more than happy using that!
-
Hi Richard,
Updating htaccess files can be tricky, especially with that risk of wrecking your site if you do something wrong. So, not a dumb question at all.
WordPress is a great way to add redirects, but if you are dealing with hundreds that can equal a lot of time.
So, if you are looking for a way to quickly build the htaccess file vs. doing everything manually in WordPress, my trick is use to a concatenation function in Excel. That way I can write hundreds of redirects at once and then copy the resulting text into the htaccess file.
The general idea is you have your old URL path in col A, the new URL (full URL) in column B, and then in column C, you'd have a formula that looks something like this (obviously line numbers might change):
="redirect 301 " & A2 & " " & B2
You could then copy column C and add that to your .htaccess file. Of course, back up the htacecss file first. The only word of caution would be to make sure you have valid paths in column A (no special characters, no full URLs, etc.).
Hope that helps.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the quick response. That's why I'm being very careful. I have used the re-direction tool but as there are quite a lot to do I was looking for some way to create one big file and then upload rather than copy and paste nearly 300 entries
-
Hey Richard
This isn't a thick question at all - you're very wise to take care with this. A faulty .htaccess file can cause chaos!
Just wanted to make a suggestion - if you're running WordPress have you tried the Redirection plugin? It does all of the rewriting for you - just pop in the old URL and the new URL and you're on your way. Comes with a few other features too and has had tons of downloads over the years.
If you want to go down the route of self-education, check out the SEOMoz redirection guide and also this blog post on some useful .htaccess snippets.
I'd recommend using the redirection plugin for 2-3 urls, check it works then look at the generated .htaccess file in your website's backend. From there, you can see the correct format and filetype etc. If the tool works, just continue to use it.
Hope this 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
-
Mass 301 redirect in htaccess
I use ScreamingFrog to generate sitemaps for my Magento 2 multistore, but I recently noticed two issues. Each category/page has two URLs. One with / and the end and one without. Every product has two URLs. One with /product-name and the other /shop/product-name. The URLs are canonicalised, but this is still a problem and I'm not sure exactly how to execute this in the htaccess file. So I need to: Remove all URLs without the / at the end and redirect them all to the URL with / at the end. Or vice versa. 301 redirect every single product (there are over 400) from shop/product-name to /product-name. How do I do this en mass in the htaccess file?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Please Help (Newbie)
Hello, guys and gals, I am new to SEO and I am vigorously trying to rank my site here in Michigan for my company and respective niche. I have had some luck as I took many days to learn the basic foundation and apply what i have learned, but even after so I have had zero luck with establishing domain authority, page authority or even seeing the slightest SEO rank improvements. could someone please help?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Charlesp31 -
Redirect Issue in .htaccess
Hi, I'm stumped on this, so I'm hoping someone can help. I have a Wordpress site that I migrated to https about a year ago. Shortly after I added some code to my .htaccess file. My intention was to force https and www to all pages. I did see a moderate decline in rankings around the same time, so I feel the code may be wrong. Also, when I run the domain through Open Site Explorer all of the internal links are showing 301 redirects. The code I'm using is below. Thank you in advance for your help! Redirect HTTP to HTTPS RewriteEngine On ensure www. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnWeb12
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] ensure https RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress USER IP BANNING <limit get="" post="">order allow,deny
deny from 213.238.175.29
deny from 66.249.69.54
allow from all</limit> #Enable gzip compression
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript #Setting heading expires
<ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/x-ico "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 14 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 14 days"</ifmodule>0 -
Htaccess Issue: URL not resolving properly
I am merging a niche site, tshirts.com to another site mainsite.com. I am using an htaccess file on a linux server, and the homepage of the niche site is being directed to the corresponding category page on the main site (i.e nichesite.com to mainsite.com/niche.html). Everything else is also a page to page redirect. I have something like this in the htaccess file: Redirect 301 http://tshirts.com/ http://www.mainsite.com/tshirts.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo
Redirect 301 http://tshirts.com/blue.html http://www.lampclick.com/blue-t-shirts.html
Redirect 301 http://tshirts.com/white.html http://www.mainsite.com/white-t-shirts.html
Redirect 301 http://tshirts.com/black-tshirts.html http://www.mainsite.com/bk-t-shirts.html When I check 301 for lets say http://tshirts.com/blue.html, I get: http://tshirts.com/blue.html -** 301 Moved Permanently** http://www.mainsite.com/tshirts.htmlblue.html -** 302 Found** http:www.mainsite.com/ How do I fix this? Why is everything being appended to minsite/tshirts.html? I appreciate your help.0 -
Best .htaccess guides in your bookmark?
It would be helpful if you can share .htaccess guides you're currently using. Thanks in advance! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | esiow20130 -
Mass 301 redirect from a sub-domain - using Joomla or htaccess
How is best to mass redirect old domains - Listing the URL's in htaccess? We are looking to use Joomla as a CMS - transferring a blog from a sub-domain to the main site and want to 301 all the sub domain blog posts - any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Help with htaccess
I just setup a WP install in a subfolder: domain.com/development/ However, there is an existing htaccess file in the root which contains the following: RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z_0-9-]+)$ /index.php?page=$1 [QSA]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SCW
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z_0-9-]+)/$ /index.php?page=$1 [QSA]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z_0-9-]+)/([a-z]+)$ /index.php?page=$1&comp=$2 [QSA]
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z_0-9-]+)/([a-z]+)/$ /index.php?page=$1&comp=$2 [QSA] I need to leave the rules as-is due to the nature of CMS (not WP) under the root domain. Is it possible to include an exception or condition which allows URL requests containing /development/ to resolve to that folder? I tried to add: RewriteRule ^development/([A-Za-z_0-9-]+)$ /development/index.php?page=$1 [QSA] but this seems to send it in a loop back to the root. Thanks!!!0 -
Google Product Feed Newbie Question
Hi, I don't know much of anything about Google Pruduct Feeds. Here is my starting point on thia: 1. Is this really free? We'd be doing it without Google checkout, just landing on our own pages with our own checkout. 2. Where do you upload the file? 3. What determines if you come up or not as a result? Any strategy or tactics involved? 4. We're the manufacturer of a product and late to the product feed game. The description that Google has used for our products is not ours or great. How do we change that product description that Google has for our products? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010