Redirects from old addresses

When a site moves to the engine or a page changes its address, the old links stay in search, in bookmarks and in other people’s articles. Without redirects they lead nowhere and the search engine drops the site from the places it earned over years. The SEO & accessibility → Redirects section keeps the rules “old address → new address”.

How it works

A rule fires only when the page at the old address is not found: live addresses cost no extra database query. So for an address to start redirecting, there must be no working page on it.

Creating a rule

Enter the old address (starting with a slash) and the new one. The new one is either an address on this site (with a slash) or a full external address over http or https. Anything else (for example “javascript:”) is refused. Only the owner or a person who confirmed their password can create a redirect to another domain. The engine ignores a rule “/a → /a” so the browser does not go in circles.

Kind of redirect:

• “Permanent” (301) — what you need when moving: the search engine remembers it and carries the weight earned by the old address to the new one;
• “Temporary” leaves the weight where it was.

Masks

In the old address you can put “*”, and in the new one “$1”…“$3”: the rule “/old/*” → “/new/$1” redirects a whole section. There are at most three asterisks in a mask; only letters, digits and the characters “._~%-/” are carried over. In an external address “$1” may stand only in the path, after the host.

Addresses not found

The rules page has a list of addresses that were looked for and not found: old links, typos in other people’s links, moved pages. Create a redirect for them and the person lands where they were going.

Rules can be switched off and on without deleting them.