Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. 301 Redirect "wildcard" question

    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.

    301 Redirect "wildcard" question

    Technical SEO
    5
    11
    24782
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • craigycraig
      craigycraig last edited by

      I have been looking at the SEOmoz redirect guide for some advice but I can't seem to find the answer : http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

      I have lots of URLs from a previous version of a site that look like the following:

      sitename.com/-c-25.html?sort=2d&page=1

      sitename.com/-c-25.html?sort=3a&page=1

      etc etc.

      I want to write a redirect so whenever a URL with the terms "-c-25.html" is requested it redirects to a specified page, regardless of what comes after the question mark.

      These URLs were created by our previous ecommerce software. The 'c' is for category, and each page of the cateogry created a different URL. I want to do these so I can rediect all of these URLs to the appropraite new cateogry page in a single redirect.

      Thanks for any help.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • iJeep
        iJeep last edited by

        When I did a similar transition with hundreds of thousands of links. I created a database table with source and destination columns. Then a script that handles all 404 requests. If the requested link matches an entry in the source column, the user is sent a 301 to the matching destination entry. That allowed for easier maintenance than a huge htaccess file and the server load caused by te script should go down over time as 301 are saved and you contact site owners to update links. The other benefit is that you can do enhanced tracking to see what is request, found and not found and where those people came from.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • SEOKeith
          SEOKeith last edited by

          An easy way is to use RedirectMatch, example:

          RedirectMatch 301 /-c-25.html http://www.domain.com/new-category

          Drop the above in a .htaccess file, test it works how you expect first 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • craigycraig
            craigycraig @HiveDigitalInc last edited by

            OK, If I make it the first redirect then the redirection works - regardless of what is written after the 'c-21.html'.

            However the redirect is retaining the erroneous URL data after redirection. It is adding the '?blahblahblah" to the end of the new URL. I want it to dispose of this so all the redirects are routed to just one URL. How do I instruct it to not include this unwanted data in the new URL?

            Thanks

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • HiveDigitalInc
              HiveDigitalInc @HiveDigitalInc last edited by

              Order matters in Rewrites. You will have to place that Rewrite Rule above the others.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • craigycraig
                craigycraig @HiveDigitalInc last edited by

                I thought that may do it but still nothing. Maybe I am entering it wrong? Here is the code in .htaccess:

                RewriteEngine On

                RewriteBase /test/

                RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L

                ]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

                RewriteRule . /test/index.php [L]

                RewriteRule ^-c-21.html(.*)$ http://www.mysitename.com/test/category/t-shirts/dolphin_tshirts [R=301,L

                ]

                The redirect just doesn't happen.

                EDIT: If I write a standard redirect : Redirect 301 /test/-c-21.html then it will redirect to the desired page but it will retain the ?blahblah and add it to the new URL. I want it to work like this but discard the ?blahblahblah after redirecting.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • HiveDigitalInc
                  HiveDigitalInc @craigycraig last edited by

                  If you need these to be 301 redirects...

                  RewriteRule ^-c-25.html(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/dolphin_tshirts [R=301,L]

                  craigycraig HiveDigitalInc 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • craigycraig
                    craigycraig last edited by

                    Just to calrify I need a URL that has

                    /-c-25.html?blahblahblah

                    to change to:

                    /dolphin_tshirts

                    Regardless of that is written in the blahblahblah part.

                    HiveDigitalInc 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • HiveDigitalInc
                      HiveDigitalInc @perfectweb last edited by

                      I think that would probably work for him, assuming that the category IDs remain the same.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • perfectweb
                        perfectweb last edited by

                        Would something liek this work:

                        RewriteRule ^-c-(.).html(.)$ category/$1.html$2 [R,NC]

                        I've not tested it, nor do I claim to be an expert, but I think it will work for what you're tryign to acheive - e.g. -c-25.html becomes category/25.html

                        HiveDigitalInc 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • HiveDigitalInc
                          HiveDigitalInc last edited by

                          If your site is in PHP, you could simply add the code...

                          $targetURL = "http://www.sitename.com/whatever-page-you-what";

                          if(stristr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],"-c-25.html")) {

                          header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: $targetURL");

                          }

                          ?>

                          If you don't have access to PHP, you could add a line like this to your HTACCESS file...

                          RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} (c-25.html) [NC]
                          RewriteRule .* http://www.sitename.com/your-target-page [L,R=301]

                          Someone might want to double check me on that rewriteRule above, though.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • alstam

                            301 redirect from dynamic url to static page

                            Hi, i want to redirect from this old link http://www.g-store.gr/product_info.php?products_id=1735/ to this one https://www.g-store.gr/golf-toualetas.html I have done several attempts but with no result. I anyone can help i will appreciate. My website runs in an Apache server with cpanel. Thank you

                            Technical SEO | | alstam
                            0
                          • Cocoonfxmedia

                            301 Redirect non existant pages

                            Hi I have 100's of URL's appearing in Search Console for example: ?p=1_1 These go to on to 5_200 etc.. I have tried to do htaccess and the mod rewrite is on as I can redirect directories to the root i.e RewriteRule ^web_example(.*)$ /$1 [R=301,N,L] However I have tried all kinds of variations to redirect ?p= and either it doesn't work at all or it crashes the website. Can anyone point me in the right direction to fix this.

                            Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia
                            0
                          • AL123al

                            Redirect URLS with 301 twice

                            Hello, I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this. We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND.  However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result. The problems I see are these unless he redirects again: The new simplified URLS  have to start from scratch to rank 2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page. I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these: Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the  "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice? If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

                            Technical SEO | | AL123al
                            0
                          • TitanDigital

                            Can you do a 301 redirect without a hosting account?

                            Trying to retire domain1 and 301 it to domain2 - just don't want to get stuck having to pay the old hosting provider simply to serve a .htaccess file with the redirect rule.

                            Technical SEO | | TitanDigital
                            0
                          • kellymandingo

                            301 Redirect How Long until the juice passes through to new site

                            Hi Guys, Following on from a question i asked last week in regard to a 301 http://www.seomoz.org/q/301-redirect-have-no-ranking I was thinking that i had some kind of issue on the site, although i have gone over it with a fine tooth comb i cannot find any issue's and from the amount of reads the thread has had im sure if there was something obvious it would have been pointed out. So i am quite confident the 301 from site A to site B is fine and working as intended, so my question is how long should it take until the juice is passed From site A to Site B as its 9 weeks now and still down 85% on traffic and even text for my home page if copied into the search bar don't bring up my site Bing is fine and did not see any real traffic drops but Google is not giving me back the rankings i had prior Whenever i have done a 301 before the rankings pretty steady and i see no real loss in rankings but this time ... painful all changes in WMT made
                            Canonical tag implemented
                            all Pages 301 and correct 200 response from the targeted page
                            Sitemap Updated
                            Many Links Changed from Old site to new (including DMOZ)
                            no Robots text Blocking directory's 
                            Google crawling freely and regularly The strange thing is New content is indexed immediately and ranks easily, I added a page for my service in my local area and went straight to position 5 in Google however old existing content wont move, I tracked 150 keywords only 4 are top 75 Don't know what else to do  so any advice would be much appreciated PS site is around 17k pages Paul

                            Technical SEO | | kellymandingo
                            0
                          • NaescentAdam

                            Index.php and 301 redirect with Joomla

                            Hi, I'm running Joomla 1.7 with SEF on and I'm trying to do a htaccess redirect which fails. I have approximately 100 in effect so far and all working fine, but I have one snag. Index.php is not working as I need it to when it's redirected to www.myurl.com/ If I turn on index.php redirect to root using this code #index.php to root
                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myurl.com$ [OR]
                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.myurl.com$
                            RewriteRule ^index.php$ "http://www.myurl.com/" [R=301,L] And then go to www.myurl.com/test.html I'm redirected to the homepage. I think this is because all pages are index.php in joomla. SEOMOZ and Google both think that index.php and root are duplicate pages. Does anyone have any advice for overcoming this? Thanks, Adam

                            Technical SEO | | NaescentAdam
                            0
                          • Sharer

                            Rel="external"

                            Hi all, I got a link and its off a site and marked up with rel="external". Is this a followed or nofollowed link? Does it pass link juice? Thanks

                            Technical SEO | | Sharer
                            0
                          • dim_d

                            Why is a 301 redirected url still getting indexed?

                            We recently fixed a redirect issue in a website, and although it appears that the redirection is working fine, the url in question keeps on getting crawled, indexed and cached by google. The redirect was done a month ago, and google shows cached version of it, even for a couple of days ago. Manual checking shows that its being redirected, and also a couple of online tools i checked report a 301 redirect. Do you have any idea why this could be happening? The website I'm talking about is www.hotelmajestic.gr and its being redirected to www.hotel-majestic.gr

                            Technical SEO | | dim_d
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          • Digital Marketers
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.