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.
How to rewrite/redirect a folder name with .htaccess
-
I have a folder in my site that I want to rename. I don’t want to just rewrite the URL and keep my old folder name, I want to change the folder name and then do whatever is necessary with .hataccess to not lose search engine rankings. The folder name I want to change has a space in it and also is misspelled (whoops x2)
Example.
Mysite.com/old foldr/page.html
Mysite.com/newfolder/page.html
How would I go about doing this with .htaccess? Do I just switch the folder name on my server and then set up a redirect, or do I do a rewrite? Sorry now familiar with the terms or .htacces.
Thanks all
-
You might possibly have to detail the white-space explicitly with \s
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^old\sfoldr/(.*) /newfolder/$1 [R=301,NC,L] -
Yes, Bradley's method will allow you to redirect everything in the folder. I thought you were just needing to re-index one file.

-
Ok thank you! Unfortunately there are LOTS of .html files within this folder, is there a way to just switch the folder name and not each individual file?
-
To 301 redirect all files in the direct to the new directory in .htaccess, try this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^old\ foldr/(.*) /newfolder/$1 [R=301,NC,L]This should redirect all HTML pages, images, you name it. It should also account for the space too.
You'll want to move all your files to the new folder location so when the redirect happens your end user doesn't receive a 404 error.
-
Yes, you will want to create a 301 redirect from the older location to the newer location.
Steps to take:
1. Change the folder on your server from /old foldr/ --> /newfolder/
2. Add this line in your .htaccess file:
redirect 301 /old%20foldr/page.html http://www.mysite.com/newfolder/page.html
**3. Make sure this is working properly. ** I like to use this 301 redirect checker tool:
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
-
Having a Subfolder/Subdirectory With a Different Design Than the Root Domain
Hi Everyone, I was wondering what Google thinks about having a subfolder/subdirectory with a different design than the root domain. So let's say we have MacroCorp Inc. which has been around for decades. MacroCorp has tens of thousands of backlinks and a couple thousand referring domains from quality sites in its industry and news sites. MacroCorp Inc. spins off one of its products into a new company called MicroCorp Inc., which makes CoolProduct. The new website for this company is CoolProduct.MacroCorp.com (a subdomain) which has very few backlinks and referring domains. To help MicroCorp rank better, both companies agree to place the MicroCorp content at MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/. The root domain (MacroCorp.com) links to the subfolder from its navigation and MicroCorp does the same, but the MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ subfolder has an entirely different design than the root domain. Will MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ be crawled, indexed, and rank better as both companies think it would? Or would Google still treat the subfolder like a subdomain or even a separate root domain in this case? Are there any studies, documentation, or links to good or bad examples of this practice? When LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com, for instance, what if they kept the https://www.lynda.com/ design as is and placed it at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/. Would the pre-purchase (yellow/black design) https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ rank any worse than it does now with the root domain (LinkedIn) aligned design? Thanks! Andy
Web Design | | AndyRCWRCM1 -
Block parent folder in robot.txt, but not children
Example: I want to block this URL (which shows up in Webmaster Tools as an error): http://www.siteurl.com/news/events-calendar/usa But not this: http://www.siteurl.com/news/events-calendar/usa/event-name
Web Design | | Zuken0 -
302 redirects, canonicalise or redirect (301)?
Hey Guys, I am fairly new to 'technical' SEO as I was lucky enough in my old role to have technical expertise in the team for things like this, now I am learning myself and it is a slow and painful process, so your expertise is soooo much appreciated! My I.T. dept say that I have 3 instances on my website where the Hybris platform is creating a 302 redirect automatically - the first: URL doesn't exist - Hybris creates a temp 302 - the system does not create case sensitive url's | http://www.example.fr/Example/Marques/0180/brand/CHANEL | URL doesn't exist | TRUE | 302 | | http://www.example.fr/Example/Marques/0015/brand/Giorgio-Armani | URL doesn't exist | TRUE | 302 |
Web Design | | eLab_London
| http://www.example.fr/fr/Example/marken/0507/brand/lancome | URL doesn't exist | TRUE | 302 | I believe these are being redirected due to the fact that capital letters are being created in the url. Multi-lingual redirects I have a German and French version of my site and whenever any switches from one URL to the other using our language selector a 302 is created. Dynamic URL elements Dynamic url elements and special characters are being created in the URL, I am not sure where this is happening, but my I.T. department would like me to go and see whether this is something that can be created by a browser. If anyone has any similar problems or have any advice or insights even, I would love to hear from you! Thanks 🙂0 -
Does Google count the domain name in its 115-character "ideal" URL length?
I've been following various threads having to do with URL length and Google's happiness therewith and have yet to find an answer to the question posed in the title. Some answers and discussions have come close, but none I've found have addressed this with any specificity. Here are four hypothetical URLs of varying lengths and configurations: EXAMPLE ONE:
Web Design | | RScime25
my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (115 characters) EXAMPLE TWO: sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (126 characters) EXAMPLE THREE: www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (130 characters) EXAMPLE FOUR: http://www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (137 characters) Assuming the examples contain appropriate keywords and are linked to appropriate anchor text (etc.,) how would Google look upon each? All I've been able to garner thus far is that URLs should be as short as possible while still containing and contextualizing keywords. I have 500+ URLs to review for the company I work for and could use some guidance; yes, I know I should test, but testing is problematical to the extreme; I look to the collective/accumulated wisdom of the MOZVerse for help. Thanks.1 -
White Text / Black Background & SEO Impact
Does anyone know of any testing / studies with evidence that Google prefers dark text on a light background vs. light text on a dark background? I have a website that currently has light text on a black background, and really like the way it looks, but am concerned that the style may be hurting SEO. Moreover, redesigning something inverse with the same quality would be a large project and fairly costly, so I'd like to make sure the benefit will really be worth the cost before moving forward.
Web Design | | Bromtec0 -
Does anyone think the <figcaption>attribute from HTML5 will have any influence for image search?</figcaption>
There is a <figure>element that is supposed to provide better descriptions of image on the web in HTML5 - do you think that will replace the importance of the "Alt" tag? Link to figcaption description </figure>
Web Design | | RankSurge2 -
Optimal redirect configuration from a misspelled domain that we own.
We have a handful of inbound links to www.t-chek.com (note the hyphen). Our normal site is www.tchek.com (no hyphen). We own both domains and have some sort of domain-wide redirect set up now. This works fine for traffic, but I suspect it's not optimal for SEO purposes. I came to this conclusion by looking in OSE and noticing that none of the inbound links to www.t-chek.com were also being attributed to www.tchek.com. 2 questions: Is it immediately evident what type of redirect I have in place now, or do I need to figure that out? Is the fix as simple as editing the .htaccess file on the hyphenated domain? I don't have direct control over the hyphenated domain, and I'd like to be able to know exactly what we need to do so I can request help from my IT department. I'd appreciate hearing your wisdom. Thanks!
Web Design | | SheriGolla0 -
Is it necessary to redirect every Error page (404 or 500) found?
If I have Hundreds of pages with 404 and 500 erros should set up 301 redirects for all of them? Some of the pages have external links, some don't.
Web Design | | jmansd0