Redirects Manager

A redirect is a way to send users and search engines to a different URL from the one they requested or entered originally. This is commonly used when webpages are changed, ensuring an automatic "redirect" to the correct page. Redirects 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. This article will help you learn to create new directs, bulk redirects, and learn a few best practices and tips for using redirects with vanity URLs on your site. 

In this Article

• Create a new redirect 
• Create bulk redirects
• Redirects and vanity URLs

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 following information into Redirects manager:

• the URL of the old/existing page,
• the URL of the new target page,
• and the type of redirect.

Locate the Redirects tab in the Composer left navigation menu.

Create a new redirect

Click the + New Redirect button in the top right corner to create a new redirect.

1. From URL: Enter the web address of the existing (old) page.
2. Enable wildcard matching: This setting allows any URL beginning with the link you place into the From URL field to be redirected to a single page. 
   • For example, enabling wildcard matching for "http://www.finalsite.com/blog" helps redirect URLs similar to https://www.finalsite.com/blog/winter/dec/old to the same page. 

3. Redirect to Page OR Redirect to URL: Click this dropdown to determine if users will be redirected to either a Page on your site or a different URL. Click Select Page to choose the page on your Composer site users will be redirected to.
   

4. 301 (Permanent) vs. 302 (Temporary): Select which redirect type this will be.

   • 301 (Permanent): These redirects best preserve site analytics tracking information when users click on them. In most cases, a Permanent redirect is more effective than a temporary one.
   • 302 (Temporary): Temporary redirects do not preserve site analytics. In fact, different search engines handle 302 requests differently, so using them can add a great deal of uncertainty to analytics results. 

5. Click Save.

Create 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 request to Support or speak to your Implementation team about this.