Stanford
Stanford Sites User Guide

URL Redirects

 

A URL redirect allows you to redirect one URL path to another. 

The URL you are redirecting must not be used as an alias on the site. In other words, the path must not be assigned to an existing page.

Automatic redirects

Stanford Sites makes certain redirects automatically. For example, if you had an"About" page with the path /our-team, and moved the page to a new location under the "About" page, the new page alias would be /about/our-team. A new redirect would be created automatically so that anyone visiting /about would be directed to /about/our-team.

Managing URL redirects

A full listing of your site's URL redirects can be found on the Redirect admin page at [your site URL]/admin/config/search/redirect or navigate to Configuration > Search and metadata > URL redirects. From this page, you can add new redirects, edit or delete current redirects, and filter your redirects.

Adding a new URL redirect

  1. If you are within the Redirect admin page, click Add redirect. Otherwise, hover over Configuration > Search and metadata > URL redirects > Add redirect in the admin toolbar.
  1. Enter the source path in the Path field.
  2. Enter the destination path in the To field. The destination can be an internal path if it's on your site, or a full external URL if you want to redirect to an external website.
  3. Almost all the time, you will want to leave Redirect status set to "301 Moved Permanently".
  4. Click Save.

You can learn more about HTTP redirect status codes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#3xx_Redirection

Manage the URL redirects on an individual page

You can also manage the URL redirect for an individual page on the edit form. Click the URL redirects tab in the sidebar. From this screen, you can add new URL redirects, or edit/delete existing redirects.

 

Frequently asked questions about redirects

Yes! Using the redirect tool, you can create a path from your site to another site, as long as the path is available and not in use on your site. This is handy in cases where you'd like your URLs to look uniform or where you are trying to create a shorter link. For example, on this site, we created a redirect to the Stanford Sites service page: https://siteuserguide.stanford.edu/service

There are four main reasons why would not be able to save a redirect: 

  • The path you are trying to redirect from is an existing page.  To solve this, change the path on the existing page.  
  • The path you are trying to redirect from is a recently deleted page. Recent deletions are kept in a holding area so that they can be restored, if needed. File a help ticket if you need us to get rid of the page immediately.
  • The path you are trying to redirect from is already redirecting somewhere else. In this case, you can search for it and update the existing redirect.
  • The path you are trying to redirect to is also a redirect. Sending users in a chain of redirects can cause many errors as well as SEO issues. Try to redirect to the real path for the page.

No. The redirect feature will not look at path parameters. So, if you were trying to redirect a path with an anchor link, like /pagename#anchor-link or other parameters like UTM codes, your redirect will only redirect /pagename.

If you see this message, you are trying to redirect an existing page. You cannot redirect an existing page even if it is unpublished or recently deleted. To get a redirect in place, change the URL alias (path) of the page to something new. After you have saved this, you can make your redirect as you would usually do.

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