Forwarding pages and redirection
When you move a page to a new location or rename its URL, you can insert a forwarding page to ensure that visitors to the old URL are redirected to the new URL automatically. When you move or rename pages, we recommend using forwarding pages as:
- visitors are redirected automatically and do not see a ‘page not found’ error message
- search engine crawlers update their index with the new URL
In this article:
Insert a forwarding page automatically when you move or rename a page
- Go to the page you wish to move or rename.
- Go to Edit > More, then select the Current page tab.
- Select either Move this page or Rename this page, as appropriate.
- Select Forward requests for the old address on to the new address. Doing so inserts a forwarding page at the old location.
Insert a forwarding page manually
Example
- A new staff intranet for the School of Architecture is ready at
/architecture/intranet
- Obsolete information for the School's staff is currently live at
/architecture/staff
- Rename or delete the obsolete page
/architecture/staff
- Insert a forwarding page at
/architecture/staff
that points to/architecture/intranet
Before forwarding
After forwarding
- Go to the old page you wish to forward visitors from – for example,
/staff
. -
Rename the obsolete page's URL to, for example,
/staff-old
and choose the following options:- Do not select Forward requests for the old address on to the new address
- Hide renamed pages in searches
- Remove view permissions from renamed pages
- Return to the parent page above the location where you want to insert a forwarding page – for example,
/architecture
. - Go to Edit > More, then select the Sub-pages tab.
-
Scroll to the bottom of the Sub-pages tab. Select one of the following buttons:
- Create a forwarding page - this is displayed when no forwarding pages exist
-
Switch to forwarding pages view - this appears when forwarding pages exist
-
In the URL box, enter the last part of the URL you want to forward visitors from. Do not include any preceding or trailing slashes. For example, to forward from:
/architecture/staff
…enter:
staff
Note: There must not be a page with the same URL at this location. If there is, follow steps 1-3 above to rename the obsolete page's URL. Alternatively, delete and purge the obsolete page. -
Enter the path of the page to forward visitors to. This is the part of the page's address after
https://warwick.ac.uk
. For example, forhttps://warwick.ac.uk/architecture/intranet
, it would be:/architecture/intranet
The target page must exist, and it must not be a forwarding page.
-
Choose whether the forwarding page should resolve sub-pages or not. If you select Always go to the target page, visitors to sub-pages such as:
/architecture/staff/starters /architecture/staff/starters/resources
/architecture/staff/leavers…are all redirected to:
/architecture/intranet
If you do not select Always go to the target page, visitors to sub-pages such as:
/architecture/staff/starters /architecture/staff/starters/resources
/architecture/staff/leavers…are redirected as follows:
/architecture/staff/starters
to/architecture/intranet/starters
/architecture/staff/starters/resources
to/architecture/intranet/starters/resources
/architecture/staff/leavers
to/architecture/intranet/leavers
- Select Save new forwarding page.
-
Visit the old URL in a browser and check that the forwarding page redirects you to the target URL. In our example, the forwarding page
/staff
forwards to/intranet
:
Forward to a URL that does not start with https://warwick.ac.uk
To forward from a SiteBuilder page to a page external to the Warwick website – one that does not begin with https://warwick.ac.uk
– contact webteam at warwick dot ac dot uk for assistance.