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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

  1. Go to the page you wish to move or rename.
  2. Go to Edit > More, then select the Current page tab.
  3. Select either Move this page or Rename this page, as appropriate.
  4. 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

  1. A new staff intranet for the School of Architecture is ready at /architecture/intranet
  2. Obsolete information for the School's staff is currently live at /architecture/staff
  3. Rename or delete the obsolete page /architecture/staff 
  4. Insert a forwarding page at /architecture/staff that points to /architecture/intranet

Before forwarding

Example site map without a forwarding page

After forwarding

Example site map with a forwarding page

  1. Go to the old page you wish to forward visitors from – for example, /staff.
  2. 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
    Rename page
  3. Return to the parent page above the location where you want to insert a forwarding page – for example, /architecture.
  4. Go to Edit > More, then select the Sub-pages tab.
  5. 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

    Create a forwarding page

  6. 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.
  7. 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, for https://warwick.ac.uk/architecture/intranet, it would be:

    /architecture/intranet

    The target page must exist, and it must not be a forwarding page.

  8. 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

  9. Select Save new forwarding page.
  10. 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:

    Example site map with a forwarding page

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.

Support

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