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.
Htaccess Redirect with %C2%A0 in URL
-
Below is my setup for redirects in .htaccess file in my root word press installation.
- The www to non-www works well, so no problems there
- Other page redirects work well, too (example: redirect 301 /some-page/ http://mysite.com/another-page/ (I didn't post those because I have a few too many : )
So here it goes...
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mysite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]BEGIN WordPress
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule>END WordPress
redirect 301 /archives/10-college- majors/ http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-majors/
redirect 301 /archives/10-college-%20majors/ http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-majors/
redirect 301 /archives/10-college-%C2%A0majors/ http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-majors/
I'm having a problem with the last 301 redirect:
- redirect 301 /archives/10-college-%C2%A0majors/ http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-majors/
not working... As you can see I've tried using other varations of the "space" but no go. I also used a redirect in cPanel's Redirect screen; testing all the possible options + wildcard
I've also tried this:
- http://serverfault.com/questions/201829/using-special-characters-in-apache-mod-rewrite-rule (perhaps unsuccessfully, because it caused a 500 server error and it's a different situation in my case)
I also saw something here:
but I don't know if it works and how I would implement that + do so without compromising ALL other redirects.
Note: the URL displays with a space in the address bar of all major web browsers: http://mysite.com/10-college- majors/ and goes to a 404 page
I have a goregous page / PR6 / high authority site linking to the URL on my site, but they copied the URL with a space somehow. I contacted the person responsible for the website and he claims it works fine (aka he didn't check it).
Is there a clean way to redirect ONLY this problematic URL without compromising other redirects, etc?
Any ideas would be great. I'll respond with progress. Thanks in advance.
UPDATE the redirect works, and it did work. Even so, when looking at source of page linking to mine, the URL looks like this: ``` http://mysite.com/archives/10-college- majors/ Clicking the URL in Source View in FireFox takes me to ``` http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-%C2%A0majors/ none of my 301 redirects should direct there. I don't have any redirect plugins either.
-
I had problems getting redirects for URLs with spaces in them working correctly on my own site, and ended up using the Redirection plugin as well, and it's worked like a charm.
The other thing I like about this plugin is the ability to see 404 errors and to set up redirects straight from that 404 list. If someone has linked to you and accidentally did a typo in the URL somewhere, or a comma got included in the hyperlink, you can see it in the 404 list and fix it right there.
-
I ended up doing what you recommended. I downloaded the Redirection plugin.
I copied the URL with %C2%A0 in it and setup a target URL without the space and the results were great. I double checked all my other redirects, in case of conflict - no worries there. Also I used the server header checker tool and saw a great 301 returning a 200 OK. That felt good.
I still wanted to learn how to do it vs. how to "plug it" - see my thread here for all other woes related to this URL
In the meanwhile I found out that it wasn't several great sites that were linking wrongly, it's like close to ten (some .edu, .org, and even one .mil - editorial links).
Sometimes it's better to conform than to be a "purist". I saved tons of time by doing what I contemplated doing initially. Thanks for the push and for the help, Dan.
-
That is an idea I have contemplated, but I'm trying to limit the number of plugins. I have other redirects working very well, but this one with the "space" is so pesky. I would love to solve the issue using .htaccess if possible. I am looking into other solutions and will post here when anything comes up. In the meanwhile, I hope others may help, too.
Dan, thank you for your great feedback.
-
Instead of using the htaccess file, you should download a wordpress plugin called SImple 301 Redirects. It's very easy. Maybe if you do the 301 reidrects at the wordpress plugin level then wordpress can handle them better.
-
Dan, Thanks for your response. I tried your recommendations. None worked. http://mysite.com/archives/10-college- majors/ is what I found in the source code, but my AWSTATS and Google Webmaster Tools point to a URL %C2%A0 as the culprit 404 error. I double checked if the URL registering in my Stats and Google WT is from that PR6 page - yes it is. There's no space in the URL from source code and I did a 301 redirect with this variation (see original post) The url only shows the space in the browser's address bar, but not in source. UPDATE the redirect works, and it did work. Even so, when looking at source of page linking to mine, the URL looks like this: ``` http://mysite.com/archives/10-college- majors/ Clicking the URL in Source View in FireFox takes me to ``` http://mysite.com/archives/10-college-%C2%A0majors/ none of my 301 redirects should direct there. I don't have any redirect plugins either.
-
Can't you look up the source code of the page with the link to you? In there you should find your link at
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
-
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?
There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smpomoryCRH0 -
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 -
Attack of the dummy urls -- what to do?
It occurs to me that a malicious program could set up thousands of links to dummy pages on a website: www.mysite.com/dynamicpage/dummy123 www.mysite.com/dynamicpage/dummy456 etc.. How is this normally handled? Does a developer have to look at all the parameters to see if they are valid and if not, automatically create a 301 redirect or 404 not found? This requires a table lookup of acceptable url parameters for all new visitors. I was thinking that bad url names would be rare so it would be ok to just stop the program with a message, until I realized someone could intentionally set up links to non existent pages on a site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood1 -
Too many 301 redirects?
Hey, My company currently has one chief website with about 500-600 other domains that all feature the same material as the chief website. These domains have been around for about 5 years and have actually picked up some link traffic. I have all of these identical web-pages utilizing rel=canonical but I was wondering if I would be better served, from SEO purposes, to 301 redirect all of these sites to their respective pages on our chief website? If I add 500 301 redirects, will the major search engines consider this to be black-hat link-building even though the sites are related and technically already feature the same content? For an example, the chief website is www.1099pro.com and I would 301 redirect the below sites to the chief site: 1099softwarepro.com 1099softwarepro.info 1099softwarepro.net 1099softwarepro.biz 1099softwareprofessionals.com 1099softwareprofessionals.info ...you get the point
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
Does a 302 redirect pass penalties?
I'm having problems finding a definitive answer to this question, there is a lot of rumour and gossip out there but nothing I can rely on. I'm working with a site that received an unnatural links notice followed by a massive drop in search traffic. Looking at the link profile it's pretty much jacked beyond repair and I have recommended that we move over to a fresh domain. However, it's an established brand with many more sources of traffic than organic search. There's no way we can burn all their repeat visits, loyal customers, brand recognition that they've built up over the years so I want to redirect from the old domain to the new. This is not to try and make any SEO gain from the previous site, frankly we don't give a crap about that. We just want to maintain the brand. A 302 is a temporary redirect, this will be a permanent move BUT a 301 will pass on the penalty. So can we safely use a 302 redirect in this situation or is there a better alternative (meta refresh?) Thanks for your help! MB.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattBarker0 -
301 redirect with /? in URL
For a Wordpress site that has the ending / in the URL with a ? after it... how can you do a 301 redirect to strip off anything after the / For example how to take this URL domain.com/article-name/?utm_source=feedburner and 301 to this URL domain.com/article-name/ Thank you for the help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | COEDMediaGroup0 -
URL Length or Exact Breadcrumb Navigation URL? What's More Important
Basically my question is as follows, what's better: www.romancingdiamonds.com/gemstone-rings/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (this would fully match the breadcrumbs). or www.romancingdiamonds.com/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (cutting out the first level folder to keep the url shorter and the important keywords are closer to the root domain). In this question http://www.seomoz.org/qa/discuss/37982/url-length-vs-url-keywords I was consulted to drop a folder in my url because it may be to long. That's why I'm hesitant to keep the bradcrumb structure the same. To the best of your knowldege do you think it's best to drop a folder in the URL to keep it shorter and sweeter, or to have a longer URL and have it match the breadcrumb structure? Please advise, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Romancing0