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 syntax for htaccess
-
I'm working on some htaccess redirects for a few stray pages and have come across a few different varieties of 301s that are confusing me a bit....Most sources suggest:
Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
or using some combination of:
RewriteRule + RewriteCond + RegEx
I've also found examples of:
RedirectPermanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
I'm confused because our current htaccess file has quite a few (working) redirects that look like this:
Redirect permanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
This syntax seems to work, but I'm yet to find another Redirect permanent in the wild, only examples of Redirect 301 or RedirectPermanent
Is there any difference between these? Would I benefit at all from replacing Redirect permanent with Redirect 301?
-
There is no difference between "Redirect 301", "Redirect permanent" and "RedirectPermanent". It is clear from mod Alias documentation:
"This directive makes the client know that the Redirect is permanent (status 301). Exactly equivalent to
Redirect permanent." "permanent - Returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that the resource has moved permanently."But, these directives are really confusing, because they are not page to page, but directory to directory. For example:
Redirect 301 /a-very-old-post/ http://yoursite.com/a-very-new-post/
Surprisingly, it will redirect all old subpages to new subpages. In particular it will redirect /a-very-old-post/page1 to /a-very-new-post/page1 Therefore better to use RedirectMatch or RewriteCond+RewriteRule for page by page redirections and for redirections with query strings.
Links to docs: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14099_19/web.1012/q20206/mod/mod_alias.html
Link to simple RedirectMatch page by page redirects generator: RedirectMatch generator for htaccess https://www.301-redirect.online/htaccess-redirectmatch-generator
Link to good RewriteRule generator: htaccess 301 redirect rewrite generator https://www.301-redirect.online/htaccess-rewrite-generator
-
In **apache **"permanent" "RedirectPermanent" is the same as "Redirect 301"
By default, the "Redirect" directive establishes a 302, or temporary, redirect.
If you would like to create a permanent redirect, you can do so in either of the following two ways:
- Redirect 301 /oldlocation http://www.domain2.com/newlocation
- Redirect permanent /oldlocation http://www.domain2.com/newlocation
Page to Page 301 Redirect Generator for Htaccess
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/
If no <var>status</var> argument is given, the redirect will be "temporary" (HTTP status 302). This indicates to the client that the resource has moved temporarily. The <var>status</var> argument can be used to return other HTTP status codes:
<dl> "permanent" & "Redirect 301"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that the resource has moved permanently.</dd>
"temp"</dl>
<dl>
<dt>Returns a temporary redirect status (302). This is the default.</dt>
"seeother"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a "See Other" status (303) indicating that the resource has been replaced.</dd>
"gone"</dl>
<dl>
<dd>Returns a "Gone" status (410) indicating that the resource has been permanently removed. When this status is used the <var>URL</var> argument should be omitted.</dd>
</dl>
**https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_alias.html **
https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/
To 301 Redirect a Page:
RedirectPermanent /old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html
To 301 Redirect a Page:
Redirect 301 /old-file.html http://www.domain.com/new-file.html
https://i.imgur.com/PTEj5ZF.png
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/
Single URL redirect
Permanent redirect from pageA_.html_ to pageB.html.
.htaccess:
301 Redirect URLs.
Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html
https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/page-to-page/
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 /pageA.html /pageB.html</ifmodule>https://www.htaccessredirect.net/
//Rewrite to www
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^site.com[nc]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.site.com/$1 [r=301,nc]//301 Redirect Old File
Redirect 301 /pageA.html /pageB.htmlYou asked about Regex
https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204643270/using-htaccess-rewrite-rules
.htaccess
Regular expressions
Rewrite rules often contain symbols that make a regular expression (regex). This is how the server knows exactly how you want your URL changed. However, regular expressions can be tricky to decipher at first glance. Here's some common elements you will see in your rewrite rules, along with some specific examples.
- ^ begins the line to match.
- $ ends the line to match.
- So, ^folder1$ matches folder1 exactly.
- . stands for "any non-whitespace character" (example: a, B, 3).
- * means that the previous character can be matched zero or more times.
- So, ^uploads.*$ matches uploads2009, uploads2010, etc.
- ^.*$ means "match anything and everything." This is useful if you don't know what your users might type for the URL.
- () designates which portion to preserve for use again in the $1 variable in the second string. This is useful for handling requests for particular files that should be the same in the old and new versions of the URL.
See for more regex
- http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html#Regular-Expressions
- https://www.askapache.com/htaccess/mod_rewrite-variables-cheatsheet/
- https://www.askapache.com/htaccess/
Hope this helps
Tom
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 -
Delete old blog posts after 301 redirects to new pages?
Hi Moz Community, I've recently created several new pages on my site using much of the same copy from blog posts on the same topics (we did this for design flexibility and a few other reasons). The blogs and pages aren't exactly identical, as the new pages have much more content, but I don't think there's a point to having both and I don't want to have duplicate content, so we've used 301 redirects from the old blog posts to the new pages of the same topic. My question is: can I go ahead and delete the old blog posts? (Or would there be any reasons I shouldn't delete them?) I'm guessing with the 301 redirects, all will be well in the world and I can just delete the old posts, but I wanted to triple check to make sure. Thanks so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
Technical SEO | | TaraLP1 -
What to do with old content after 301 redirect
I'm going through all our blog and FAQ pages to see which ones are performing well and which ones are competing with one another. Basically doing an SEO content clean up. Is there any SEO benefit to keeping the page published vs trashing it after you apply a 301 redirect to a better performing page?
Technical SEO | | LindsayE0 -
301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?
Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.
Technical SEO | | ztalk1120 -
Simple 301 redirect a subfolder to another subfolder
Hi, I have a number of sub-folders that I have to move, each of which contains a number of files. subfolder A has files a, b & c subfolder B has files d, e & f
Technical SEO | | aactive
subfolder C has files g, h & i A, B & C folders need to be X, Y & Z Will the following work? RewriteRule ^subfolder-A/* http://www.domain.com/subfolder-X/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^subfolder-B/* http://www.domain.com/subfolder-Y/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^subfolder-C/* http://www.domain.com/subfolder-Z/ [R=301,L] will this result in visitors to http://www.domain.com/subfolder-B/f.html being redirected to http://www.domain.com/subfolder-Y/f.html? All on the same domain. in reality we are talking hundreds of sub folders and thousands of files so we don't want to have to reference every file individually in the htaccess. Thanks0 -
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 -
Does it really matter to maintain 301 redirect after de-indexing of old URLs?
Today, I was reading latest blog post on SEOmoz blog about. Uncrawled 301s - A Quick Fix for When Relaunches Go Too Well This is very interesting study about 301 & How it useful to maintain traffic. I'm working on eCommerce website and I have done similar stuff on my website. I have big confusion to manage 301 redirect. My website generates new URLs due to following actions. Re-write dynamic URLs. Re-launch entire website on different eCommerce platform. [osCommerce to Magento Commerce] Re-name category. Trasfer one product from one category to another category. I'm managing my 301 redirect with old practice. Excel sheet data from Google webmaster tools and set specific new URLs for redirect. Hoooo... Now, I have 8.5K redirect in htaccess... And, I'm thinking it's too much. Can we remove old 301 redirect from htaccess or not? This is big question for me. Because, all pages are not hyperlink on external website. Google have just de-indexed old URLs and indexed new URLs. So, Is it require to maintain 301 redirect after Google process?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
200 Redirects for SEO instead of 301
We are working with a company on re-platforming our website. On a call yesterday they outlined a strategy to use 200 redirects for our top keywords instead of 301s. I am not familiar with this type of redirect and was wondering if anyone could provide some more insight.
Technical SEO | | EvergladesDirect0