Post by Karen » Sun Jun 20, 2010 2:53 pm

I'm sure this is pretty basic, but I've never done it before.

I'm going to be moving my 3 stores and someone mentioned to me to make sure to do "301 redirects for the old pages". Do I actually have to map each and every product's old URL to its new one?? (And is this done in the .htaccess file?)

Is there another way to, at least, not have people disappear when the landing page isn't the exact product or category that it was supposed to be?
Last edited by i2Paq on Sun Jun 20, 2010 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic moved

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Post by i2Paq » Sun Jun 20, 2010 3:39 pm

Moving over to a new domain or new hoster?

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Post by Karen » Mon Jun 21, 2010 3:22 am

Same domains, new host & software.

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Post by i2Paq » Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:27 am

1. Make a backup of ALL the files via ftp and a db backup via phpMyAdmin on the old host.

2. When the domain has been moved to the new host do a clean install of the same version on your now host.

3. delete all the files of the new install made at 2. on your new host EXCEPT config.php and admin\config.php.
empty the new db of the new install made at 2. on your new host (do NOT delete the db itself).

Upload all the files made at 1. EXCEPT the config.php and admin\config.php
Restore the backup db made at 1. to the db at your new host.

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Post by Karen » Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:51 am

Can't do #1, don't have FTP or root access (it's a hosted solution).
And the software is completely different, so I couldn't do a clean install of it - if that's what I was supposed to do a clean install of.

My question wasn't about how to transfer things, necessarily, but how to redirect the old URLs to my new ones.

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Post by SteveSherry » Mon Jun 21, 2010 6:42 am

wow, this is the third post that i've seen tonight where someone gives a detailed help that doesn't quite meet the questioners exact requirement.
There's no "Thanks", no mention of appreciation of the time taken, just an off hand comment saying something like "that's not what I want"

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Post by Karen » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:38 pm

Sorry if that sounded brusque to you. I'm frustrated that I *don't* have root access to my old DB.

I can always try asking my new web host for tips, but I thought it made more sense to ask people who may have had to do this, first.

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Post by i2Paq » Mon Jun 21, 2010 3:54 pm

If the domain stays the same there is no need for redirects, 301's or whatever.

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Post by Karen » Mon Jun 21, 2010 5:03 pm

Really? That would be a relief!

But if, say, someone tried to follow an old URL...well, here's a real example:

Code: Select all

http://www.tabletopcollectibles.com/Apple-Tea-For-One-Set-by-Romero-Britto_p_2798.html
The static URL from the above example was generated by the software. I certainly don't want my new URL to end with _p_2798, so in my new OC store, the URL will read more like:

Code: Select all

http://www.tabletopcollectibles.com/Apple-Tea-For-One-Set-by-Romero-Britto-330303.html
(the number being the product number). (Or even,

Code: Select all

http://www.tabletopcollectibles.com/Tea-For-Ones/Apple-Tea-For-One-Set-by-Romero-Britto-330303.html)
So I have to have some kind of redirect for that, correct? Because otherwise, the person looking for this teapot will either end up on my homepage, or getting a 404 page, right?

Just wondering how others who've moved from one software provider to another have handled this.

And if I DID want to take on the Herculean task of mapping all the old product and category URLs to the new ones, would that be in the .htaccess file?

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Post by Xsecrets » Mon Jun 21, 2010 9:02 pm

yes that would be done in the .htaccess file, and yes that's pretty much the only way to do it, and yes you are correct that someone coming from a bookmark or a link will get a 404 page without it.

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Post by Karen » Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:51 am

Xsecrets wrote:yes that would be done in the .htaccess file, and yes that's pretty much the only way to do it, and yes you are correct that someone coming from a bookmark or a link will get a 404 page without it.
Yeah, that's what I figured.

As an alternative I'm considering making my 404 page read something really friendly, like "Oops! Looks like what you were looking for has been moved" and then installing the advanced search right below that, with an invitation to search for it.

In case I do decide to hard-code all the new pages to the old ones, can you tell me (1) how that is supposed to read in the .htaccess file, and (2) if it would slow *everyone* down? On one site I have nearly 1,000 products and I don't know how many seconds it would take to scan all those lines of code.

Another possibility I'm considering is redirecting only the categories and manufacturers.

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Post by peteVA » Tue Jun 22, 2010 8:45 am

Unless you have affiliates selling specific items for you, my guess is that you are making much ado about very little.

Do you know for a fact there are many people bookmarking specific items? Do you have access to logs that show a new or returning visitor going directly to a specific item page in enough instances to make it worth the time involved to do what you are suggesting?

At most I'd suggest the 404 with a search box and the instructions to enter the number only that is at the end of the old address.

Personally, I'd make it so all went direct to the home page and let them go from there.

An interesting thing to consider, but very possibly true - they may find more to buy if they have to look around a bit.

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Post by Karen » Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:41 am

Thanks for the input. And you're right that it might be much ado about nothing. It's not that I'm concerned about people bookmarking products (though they do); I'm concerned about old search results. But maybe this is moot, too.

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Post by Karen » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:34 am

UPDATE: I'm suffering now because I DIDN'T do a 301 redirect on each and every product page. I should have. I don't think I can fix this now because my old store has been shut down for awhile, but I thought I should update this post to keep other people from making the same mistake I did.

The problem is not that people bookmarked a page; the problem is that Google is STILL trying to crawl the old URLS, and getting 404s on every single one of them. My traffic is almost non-existent now.

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Post by jty » Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:18 pm

Karen wrote:UPDATE: I'm suffering now because I DIDN'T do a 301 redirect on each and every product page. I should have. I don't think I can fix this now because my old store has been shut down for awhile, but I thought I should update this post to keep other people from making the same mistake I did.
Why can't you reinstate the domain names and do a 301 redirect now

Hosting is so cheap that the small expense might get something back for you
or is it too late or did I not read something else above (which I didn't read)

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Post by websteer » Thu Oct 28, 2010 1:58 am

Go through your analytics package and ascertain which resources you had and write 301's now.

Good luck!

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Post by Moggin » Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:13 am

Karen wrote:... Google is STILL trying to crawl the old URLS, and getting 404s on every single one of them. My traffic is almost non-existent now.
Do you still own the domain/site? Any luck with removing the site from Google's search results?
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Post by jimmyharwood » Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:35 am

Hi all,

I have changed from OScommerce to Opencart. The domain is the same and the host is the same, all that has changed is the ecommerce package (OSC to OPENCART).

Although the old urls are going to the not_found.php page and I have put 404.html in the root, I am getting soft 404 from Google analytics's, I set a redirect in the not_found to the home page, but I am still getting the 404's. The 404.html is not getting accessed at all.

I am running 1.5.3.1

Is there any way to get the old url's go to the 404 page, so that google stops searching for them, there is 1000's and this is causing a bit of a problem, any advice would be gratefully accepted.

Many thanks in advance, for any advice

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