Redirects Manager

Redirect Manager lets site admins create and manage 301 and 302 redirects in a central location within Composer, rather than on a page-by-page basis.

Redirects are set for URLs that correspond to an external page (such as a page on a school’s previous website) and points them toward a Composer page instead. When creating a new Redirect, you’ll need to enter the URL of the old/existing page, the URL of the new target page, and the type of redirect.

Creating new redirects

To create a new redirect, go to Composer tab > Redirects. You’ll see a list of any existing redirects, as well as a green “+ New Redirect” button. Click the button to setup a new redirect.

1. In the “From URL” field, enter the web address of the existing (old) page.

2. Click “Choose Page” to select which page on your Composer site users will be taken to when they visit the existing page.

3. Select Permanent or Temporary redirect type (you’ll want to use Permanent in most cases, see below).

4. Click “Save.”

Redirect types

There are two redirect types, 301 (Permanent) and 302 (Temporary). The primary difference between them is that Permanent redirects preserve site analytics tracking information when users click on them, whereas Temporary redirects do not (in fact, different search engines handle 302 requests differently, so using them can add a great deal of uncertainty to analytics results. In most cases, a Permanent redirect will be more effective than a temporary one.)

Compatible URLs

Note that Redirect Manager only works with “path” style URLs such as those created by Composer, where a page’s address is derived from the pages above it in the site organization (for example, “www.school.org/academics/mathematics/algebra” - each “/” is followed by a page name that’s lower in the site hierarchy.)

Redirect Manager will not work with an older style of URLs that use attributes, such as those created by Page Manager. You can spot these URLs because they’ll have a ‘?’ in them, followed by some kind of identifier (like “www.school.com/academics/page.cfm?p=838”). If you need to create redirects for those sorts of URLs, please send a ticket to Finalsite Support for assistance.

Bulk redirects

Finally, it is possible to bulk-create redirects for a large number of pages if you don’t want to set them up one-by-one in Redirect Manager. For more information about creating redirects in bulk, please submit a ticket to Support.