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 Redirects to relative URLs not absolute a problem?
Hi we recently did a migration and a lot of content changed locations see: https://d.pr/i/RvqI81 Basically, the 301 goes to the correct location but its a relative URL (as you can see from the screenshot) rather than absolute URL. Do you think this is a high priority issue from an SEO standpoint, should we get the developer to change the redirects to absolute? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cathywix0 -
Default Wordpress 301 Redirects of JS and CSS files. Bad for SEO & How to Fix?
Hi there: We are developers with some digital marketing expertise, but a current issue has us perplexed. An outside SEO firm has asked us to clean up a large number of 301 redirects. Most of these are 'default' Wordpress behavior that relate to calling the latest version of a JS or CSS file. For instance, a JS file is called with this: https://websitexyz.com/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js?ver=4.9.1 but ultimately redirects to this: https://websitexyz.com/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js. We are being asked to prevent the redirect from happening by, presumably, calling the ultimate file to begin with. The issue is that, as far as we know, there's no easy way to alter WP behavior to call the ultimate file to begin with. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
301 redirect hops from non-https and www
It's best practice to minimize the amount of 301 redirect hops. Ideally only one redirect hop. It's also best practice to 301 redirect (or at least canonical) your non-https and/or your non-www (or www) to the canonical protocol/subdomain. The simplest (and possibly the most common) way to implement canonical protocol/subdomain redirects is through a load balancer or before your app processes the request. Both of which will just blanket 301 to the canonical domain/protocol regardless if the path exists or not In which case, you could have: Two hops. i.e. hop #1 http://example.com/foo to https://example.com/foo, hop #2 https://example.com/foo to https://example.com/bar 301 to a 404. Let's say https://example.com/dog never existed, but somebody for whatever reason linked to it (maybe a typo). If I request https://www.example.com/dog, the load balancer would 301 to a 404 page. Either scenario above should be fairly rare. However, you can't control how people link to you. Should I care about either above scenario? I could have my app attempt to check if the page exists before forwarding, but that code could be complicated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud0 -
Should we 301 redirect old events pages on a website?
We have a client that has an events category section that is filled to the brim with past events webpages. Another issue is that these old events webpages all contain duplicate meta description tags, so we are concerned that Google might be penalizing our client's website for this issue. Our client does not want to create specialized meta description tags for these old events pages. Would it be a good idea to 301 redirect these old events landing pages to the main events category page to pass off link equity & remove the duplicate meta description tag issue? This seems drastic (we even noticed that searchmarketingexpo.com is keeping their old events pages). However it seems like these old events webpages offer little value to our website visitors. Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Images Returning 404 Error Codes. 301 Redirects?
We're working with a site that has gone through a lot of changes over the years - ownership, complete site redesigns, different platforms, etc. - and we are finding that there are both a lot of pages and individual images that are returning 404 error codes in the Moz crawls. We're doing 301 redirects for the pages, but what would the best course of action be for the images? The images obviously don't exist on the site anymore and are therefore returning the 404 error codes. Should we do a 301 redirect to another similar image that is on the site now or redirect the images to an actual page? Or is there another solution that I'm not considering (besides doing nothing)? We'll go through the site to make sure that there aren't any pages within the site that are still linking to those images, which is probably where the 404 errors are coming from. Based on feedback below it sounds like once we do that, leaving them alone is a good option.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | garrettkite0 -
Why would our server return a 301 status code when Googlebot visits from one IP, but a 200 from a different IP?
I have begun a daily process of analyzing a site's Web server log files and have noticed something that seems odd. There are several IP addresses from which Googlebot crawls that our server returns a 301 status code for every request, consistently, day after day. In nearly all cases, these are not URLs that should 301. When Googlebot visits from other IP addresses, the exact same pages are returned with a 200 status code. Is this normal? If so, why? If not, why not? I am concerned that our server returning an inaccurate status code is interfering with the site being effectively crawled as quickly and as often as it might be if this weren't happening. Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
CPanel Redirect not allowing login access.
Using the redirect function in cPanel I am able to create the 301 redirect that I need to not have duplicate content issues in Moz. However, the issue now is that when I try to login to domain.com/login it redirects to domain.com/index.php?q=admin, which is not a page on the site and I can no longer login. I have checked the htaccess file and it appears that the entry is correct ( I originally thought that the cPanel redirect was not writing access correctly ). I am not sure if there is a small detail that I am missing with this or not. So my main question is how do I redirect my site to remove dup content errors while retaining the login at domain.com/admin and not be redirected to domain.com/index.php?q=admin? Thank you ahead of time for your assistance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Highline_Ideas0 -
How do I go about changing a 302 redirect to a 301.
Hello Friends! Thanks for viewing my question. Ok,My question today is How do I go about redirecting a 302 link to a 301 link. I understand the benefits of doing this as far as link juice and how the Search Engines views the two Re-Directs. I am wanting to know where I would start to do this. Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0