How to write 301 redirects in WordPress
-
I've successfully migrated new site to new domain (www.cmsearchmarketing.com)
But I cannot get 301 redirects for pages and blog posts to redirect from the old domain (www.creativemindsearchmarketing.com).
And it's my understanding I need to do a 301 for each page to maintain SEO.
Here's what I've tried:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^p=975$RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.cmsearchmarketing.com/top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up/? [R=301,L]
BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule># END WordPress
#AND ALSO#
Use PHP5 Single php.ini as defaultAddHandler application/x-httpd-php5s .php
BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule># END WordPress
redirect 301 /top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up http://www.cmsearchmarketing.com/top-5-questions-to-ask-an-seo-firm-before-signing-up/
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
_Cindy
P.S. Maybe some other issues are in the way:
--Old site is WP-Remix theme no longer supported, and latest WP version is 2.9.1
-- Old domain (www.creativemindsearchmarketing.com) is the primary account on BlueHost …and the new domain (www.cmsearchmarketing.com) is an addon, so the new domain's directory is within root of old domain.
-- in root domain of old site there are other "handler files" that also have base file rewrites, if this is an issue:
name of this file in root directory is:
.htaccess.addHandlerBak-FrontPage-
<limit get="" post="">order deny,allowdeny from allallow from all</limit><limit put="" delete="">order deny,allowdeny from all</limit>AuthUserFile /home/creatjo7/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwdAuthGroupFile /home/creatjo7/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp# BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule>
END WordPressAuthName creativemindsearchmarketing.comIndexIgnore .htaccess /.?? *~ *# /HEADER /README /_vti
-
OK, so simple 301 redirects seem to be working out fine.
But having a thing for a puzzle, and thus far learning more about htaccess, I am wondering why a simple rewrite... or "redirect" rule would not work. Like this:
RewriteRule ^(./blog)$ http://cmsearchmarketing.com/blog$1.php [R=301,NC]
or this
RewriteRule ^./blog$ http://www.cmsearchmarketing.com/blog [R=301,NC]
(...and this goes into the old site htaccess with the old domain name, NOT the new site with the new domain name; and the new site basically has all new page names.)
Where in the htaccess file would it go... after the WP permalink rule - considering I am using permalinks on the site and writing the rules with the permalink structure?
Can I write a rule such as this and redirect to another domain all together?
When would I use [L] for last rule?
And what's the difference in a rewrite and a redirect?
OK, if anyone is pursuing and can help I would appreciate.
Thank you very much._Cindy
-
Sorry, try that link again (I've edited it)
-
Didn't understand the link you gave...
-
Hi Cindy,
You can install the plugin on your current setup, and it should work, if by chance it doesnt work, you can download the older versions here which are supported in 2.9.1
This plugin allows you to 301 redirect from anywhere on your site to any external link you want
-
You should be able to do something like this: http://screencast.com/t/1kU7rKwiC
-
So is the redirection plugin installed on the old site (that's a different domain name), and can the target url be an external link?
The source URL cannot be an external link, right?
Cindy
-
Thank you for answering.
None of the pages are the same name on new site as on the old site.
However, the blog posts are the same. And if i could use a redirect for all pages on blog that would help.
But when I use the cpanel wildcard, or rules to the htaccess file, I do not get one page corresponding to the new page, - all old blog posts go to the home page.
_Cindy
-
Cindy as long as your categories and file names are the same, you can just put in 1 (one) wild card redirect that will redirect everything from your old domain to the same file name on your new domain. i.e. olddomain.com/seo/goodseo.html will redirect to newdomian.com/se/goodseo
And, the easiest way to do this is from your servers Cpanel. Go into the cpanel, look for redirect, tell it the old domain and the new domain and tell it to use "wild card" for redirection.
-
Thanks for your reply.
The old site theme isn't supported anymore, cannot update WP beyond 2.9.1.
Does this simple 301 redirect plugin need to be on old site or new?
So if old domain name is different than new domain name, can I use this plugin?
_Cindy
-
I recommend Redirection – it's the most popular plugin out there. I use it on a number of sites and works great.
-
Is the old site in WordPress? Try Simple 301 Redirects or a similar plugin to 301 individual pages/posts.
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
-
Is 301 redirect the only way when using Vanity URLs?
We have been using vanity urls for some of our pages. Mostly the pages that have a vanity URL have a long URL length. But now the problem is, the vanity URL is getting displayed on the search engine when the particular keyword related to the page is entered. I checked the google search console, the vanity URL is indexed and the original URL remains unindexed. What should I do? Is adding 301 redirect to the vanity URLs are solution? Since some of vanity URLs are not redirecting to the original. Some of the original pages are not getting traffic. Also, can using canonical tag help?
Technical SEO | | tejasbansode0 -
Moving site from html to Wordpress site: Should I port all old pages and redirect?
Any help would be appreciated. I am porting an old legacy .html site, which has about 500,000 visitors/month and over 10,000 pages to a new custom Wordpress site with a responsive design (long overdue, of course) that has been written and only needs a few finishing touches, and which includes many database features to generate new pages that did not previously exist. My questions are: Should I bother to port over older pages that are "thin" and have no incoming links, such that reworking them would take time away from the need to port quickly? I will be restructuring the legacy URLs to be lean and clean, so 301 redirects will be necessary. I know that there will be link juice loss, but how long does it usually take for the redirects to "take hold?" I will be moving to https at the same time to avoid yet another porting issue. Many thanks for any advice and opinions as I embark on this massive data entry project.
Technical SEO | | gheh20130 -
301 Redirect domain with penalty
Wondering if I could get a few views on this please... I have added an affiliate store to a domain I own, however I forgot to noindex the product pages which were duplicate content of the merchants. Despite a good deal of backlink building the site will not do much in the engines at all, doesn't even come up on the first few pages for it's own name! This suggests to me that I have a duplicate content penalty. Try as I may I cannot get it removed so am thinking of cloning the domain to a new domain, however, I do not want to lose the links I collected so I am planning on 301ing them. While I will not get all the link power moved over, I should at least get credit for some of them which will kick start the new domain. Can anyone forsee any potential issues with doing this? Is there a danger of 301ing a site with a penalty that the penalty would be carried over? I know there is no penalty on the links, no WMT warnings etc, it is the content causing the issue. Thanks, Carl
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
CNAME vs 301 redirect
Hi all, Recently I created a website for a new client and my next job is trying to get them higher in Google. I added them in OSE and noticed some strange backlinks. To my surprise the client has about 20 domain names. All automatically poiting to (showing) the same new mainsite now. www.maindomain.nl www.maindomain.be
Technical SEO | | Houdoe
www.maindomain.eu
www.maindomain.com
www.otherdomain.nl
www.otherdomain.com
... Some of these domains have backlinks too (but not so much). I suggested to 301 redirect them all to the main site. Just to avoid duplicate content. But now the webhoster comes into play: "It's a problem, client has only 1 hosting account, blablabla...". They told me they could CNAME the 20 domains to the main domain. Or A-record them to an IP address. This is too technical stuff for me. So my concrete questions are: Is it smart to do anything at all or am I just harming my client? The main site is ranking pretty well now. And some backlinks are from their copy sites (probably because everywhere the logo links to the full mainsite url). Does the CNAME or A-record solution has the same effect as a 301 redirect, from SEO perspective? Many thanks,
Hans0 -
How do I fix a 301 Redirect Loop?
Saturday I waas doing some correcting of some duplicate titles, including nofollowing tags, etc. (my main problem was duplicate titles due to tags and categories being indexed). Now this morning I see that one of my pages refuses to load, citing a 301 redirect loop. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/feeding/switching-baby-formula/ Originally, the page was posted under the wrong category. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/uncategorized/switching-baby-formula I resaved it under the correct category (feeding) and now it won't load. Can someone help me figure out how to correct this mess? Thanks so much Heather
Technical SEO | | Gotmoxie0 -
301 Redirects
Hi, I ran the seomox link report and see that I have an entry for our home page (http://www.trophycentral.com/) and http://www.trophycentral.com/index.html. The index is shown with a 301 redirect. Does this mean that a redirect is already in place to http://www.trophycentral.com/? I want to ensure our traffic is not being split between the two urls, but not sure how to confirm this. Thanks! <colgroup><col width="294"></colgroup><colgroup><col width="81"></colgroup><colgroup><col width="80"></colgroup><colgroup><col width="77"></colgroup><colgroup><col width="214"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards
| URL | HTTP Status | Total Links | Page Authority | Number of Linking Root Domains |
| http://www.trophycentral.com/ | 200 | 5746 | 53 | 244 |
| http://www.trophycentral.com/index.html | 301 | 5123 | 42 | 4 |1 -
Is it worth setting up 301 redirects from old products to new products?
This year we are using a new supplier and they have provided us a product database of approx. 5k products. About 80% of these products were in our existing database but once we have installed the new database all the URLs will have changed. There is no quick way to match the old products with the new products so we would have to manually match all 5k products if we were were to setup 301 rules for the old products pointing to the new products. Of course this would take a lot of time. So the options are: 1. Is it worth putting in this effort to make the 301 rules? 2. Or are we okay just to delete the old product pages, let the SE see the 404 and just wait for it to index the new pages? 3. Or, as a compromise, should we 301 the old product page to the new category page as this is a lot quicker for us do do than redirecting to the new product page?
Technical SEO | | indigoclothing0 -
Will Google index a 301 redirect for a new site?
So here is the problem... We have setup a 301redirect for our clients website. When you search the clients name it comes up with the old .co.uk website. We have made this redirect to the new .com website. However on the SERPs when it shows the .co.uk it shows the old title pages which currently say 'Holding Page'. When you click on that link it takes you to the fully functioning .com website. My question is, will the title tags in the SERPs which show the .co.uk update to the new ones from the .com? I'm thinking it will be just a case of Google catching up on things and it will sort itself out eventually. If anyone could help I would REALLY appreciate it. Thanks Chris
Technical SEO | | Weerdboil0