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.
Best & easiest way to 301 redirect on IIS
-
Hi all,
What is the best and easiest way to 301 redirect URLs on IIS server?
I got access to the FTP and WordPress back office, but no access to the server admin.
Is there an easy way to create 301 redirect without having to always annoy the tech in charge of the server?
Thanks!
-
Thanks a lot for your answer

-
You have two options:
- Set it up in IIS Manager (best option, least overhead for the server, need no coding skills)
- Code it in classic ASP in a global include file that all pages reference before sending content back to the browser.
Here's a great article that walks you through the IIS config option. For this, you need access to IIS Manager:
Sounds like that option is unavailable to you however.
For the other option: your site probably has a file or two that's included at the start of all web pages. (If not, you can add it). In that file, you'll want to check the URL passed in like this:
Dim sThisPage = Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
If (LCase(sThisPage) = "/oldpage.aspx") Then
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://" & sThisServer & "/newpage.aspx"
Response.End
End If -
Any IIS expert around?..

-
There - you can see how often I have worked on IIS servers

-
there is no .htaccess on IIS servers

-
No problem, I'll have a look for another website
thanks -
Nor was I.
If you have FTP access, you might then have to work in the .htaccess file and build the redirects in there.
-Andy
-
Bummer, I was not aware of that, its such an awesome plugin
-
Hi Vadim,
Thanks for your answer, however it looks that the redirection plugin works only for apache servers.
-
Hi Andy,
thanks, it works for IIS servers too?
- Benoit.
-
Hi Benoit,
Yes, Andy is totally on it. Server side redirects are faster, however if you have Wordpress a plugins make it so much easier and convenient.
Also if you want other powerful features like: 404 error monitoring - captures a log of 404 errors and allows you to easily map these to 301 redirects, and more Try Redirection plugin
Hope this Helps!
-
Absolutely - Install this plugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-301-redirects/
I use this on a couple of my own sites and it works a treat.
-Andy
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
-
How effective are 301 redirects in passing page rank?
I have a blog which is ranking well for certain terms, and would like to repurpose it to better explain these terms it is ranking for, including updating the url to the new term the blog will be about. The plan being to 301 redirect the old url to new. In the past, I've done this with other pages, and have actually lost much of the rankings that I had earned on the original URL. What is your take on this? Maybe repurpose blog, but maintain original URL just to be on the safe side? Thanks
Technical SEO | | CitimarineMoz0 -
1000 Pages on old website. What to do with the 301 redirects for this domain?
Hi Moz Community, I have a 301 redirect question... I just acquired an old domain: Totally in my niche Domain is 14 years old Website exists of 1000 pages Great amount of backlinks Website is offline since about 2 weeks Will place a new website online asap with new url structure For the 50 best scoring pages I wrote a new, but fully comparable/related article. I will put a 301 redirect from those old to the new pages. My question: What to do with the 950 other url's? Should I put a 301 redirect to the homepage? Should I forward those pages to the 404 page? Should I divide the 950 url's with a 301 redirect to the 50 new ones? Another solution maybe? Any idea what would be the best solution so we can save as much Google juice as possible? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | snorkel0 -
Best way to change URL for already ranking pages
Hello. I have a lot of pages that I'm optimising. The ones I'm focusing on right now is already ranking, but the URLs could be better (they don't include the keywords right now). However I'm worried that if I change the URLs they will drop in rankings or have to start over. I would of course set up 301 redirect, but is there more I need to do? What is the best way to change URL for already ranking pages?
Technical SEO | | GoMentor0 -
301 redirects delay in picking up
Hi I have been involved in the redesign/development of a website which has up until now had a lot of international traffic. On day of migration I uploaded all the 301 redirects to the website (wordpress) using Simple 301 redirect plugin. I tested a number of them and they appeared to be working. I also submitted the new sitemaps to Search Console. Since migration international traffic - particularly from countries such as india, Phillipines, Sri Lanka etc have significantly dropped off whereas the local traffic and some of the international traffic such as USA has remained fairly consistent. Looking at Analytics and entrances recently it appears as though search results are/were showing a number of pages with 404's (one in particular which received significant traffic and for which I had created a 301 redirection) - I have checked this page using the old url and it re-directs correctly for me and today asked a colleague in India to also check - he is getting the redirection fine. Does Google.in take a significantly longer time to pick these up in search results? Or am I missing something?
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing0 -
Robots txt. in page with 301 redirect
We currently have a a series of help pages that we would like to disallow from our robots txt. The thing is that these help pages are located in our old website, which now has a 301 redirect to current site. Which is the proper way to go around? 1- Add the pages we want to disallow to the robots.txt of the new website? 2- Break the redirect momentarily and add the pages to the robots.txt of the old one? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Best Practice on 301 Redirect - Images
We have two sites that sell the same products. We have decided to retire one of the sites as we'd like to focus on one property. I know best practice is to redirect apples to apples, which in our case is easily done since the sites sold the same thing. www.SiteABC.com/ProductA can be redirected to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA. My question is how far does that thinking go regarding images? Each product has a main product page, of course, and then up to 6 images in some cases. Is it necessary to redirect www.SiteABC.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg? Or can they all be redirected to just the product page?
Technical SEO | | Natitude0 -
Best Way To Clean Up Unruly SubDomain?
Hi, I have several subdomains that present no real SEO value, but are being indexed. They don't earn any backlinks either. What's the best way of cleaning them up? I was thinking the following: 1. Verify them all in Webmaster Tools. 2. Remove all URLs from the index via the Removal Tool in WMT 3. Add site-wide no-index, follow directive. Also, to remove the URLs in WMT, you usually have to block the URLs via /robots.txt. If I'd like to keep Google crawling through the subdomains and remove their URLs, is there a way to do so?
Technical SEO | | RocketZando0 -
What should be use 301 or 302 redirection for 404 pages
Please suggest which redirection we should use for 404 pages- 301 or 302. If you can elaborate it with reason then it will be highly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | koamit0