Automatic 301 Redirect

@akashmughal21

I’m not clear on why you want to. But add this to the functions.php file in your theme and it should work and you’ll get your 301 :
remove_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘redirect_canonical’);

Hi @corrinarusso

Unfortunately, it’s not working. I have added the said code to functions.php of my theme. But the old URLs are still 301 redirecting. You can check.

https://templatesfreedownload.com/jitsi-meet/

is redirecting to

https://templatesfreedownload.com/jitsi-meet-app/

while the code the below code is in functions.php

remove_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘redirect_canonical’);

Further, I just want to remove old URLs so it shouldn’t appear in my search console as indexed. So, I want to use 410 so these can be unindexed by google instead of redirection. I don’t have any rank or value to the old URL so it’s useless.

@akashmughal21

Hmmm – the codex says this :
“Will also attempt to find the correct link when a user enters a URL that does not exist based on exact WordPress query. Will instead try to parse the URL or query in an attempt to figure the correct page to go to.”

https://developer.www.ads-software.com/reference/functions/redirect_canonical/

Did you purge and delete any cache you may have running?
SmushIT, Monster?

@corrinarusso

I have purged the W3 total plugin cache and cloudflare cache. Also, cleared the browser cookies. But its not working.

@akashmughal21

I’m tapped out of ideas then .
Did you dump Yoast?

Yes, I tried deleting the yoast plugin. But it didn’t worked so I reinstalled it.

I just want to remove old URLs from indexing. Even though they keep on redirecting. I just dont wanna see those as indexed. Although I have use the removal feature of search console to stop recrawling but yeah its for 90 days i guess.

Do you have any other idea to remove urls from google indexing as I can’t show 404 or 410 on these pages due to 301 redirect issue.

@akashmughal21

If it were me, at this point, I would download my database, and remove all instances of the old url. The re-insert my database. If you’re not comfortable with that, you could try a serialized search and replace tool like this one :
https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/

Secondly, you could write explicit 404s in your httpd.conf or .htaccess file. So that it 404s before it 301s.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18730683/send-a-404-error-via-htaccess
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/42822/how-to-redirect-specific-url-to-404-in-htaccess

@corrinarusso

I am a very beginner and don’t have many skills in coding and all that. So, I am not comfortable with trying databased related things. Anyhow thanks for your cooperation.

I have tried adding Redirect 404 /jitsi-meet/ in .htaccess. It makes the page show 404 not found error but the error was not loading the theme default 404 ErrorDocument.

I am just changing my mind to leave things as it is. As nothing working well for my case.

I was doing all this as I am confused with seeing a lot of URLs in the coverage section of the Search console. That say indexed, not submitted in sitemap.

So, I was just trying to clear that section although it doesn’t show any error.

Also, I guess WPOcean theme isn’t offering any default 410 ErrorDocument. So, even at some point I really need to use it. I have to create it myself. Don’t know how I am gonna do that as the Redirection Plugin is also not working to show 404 or 410 for any url.

Thanks for Your precious comments. Now, I will mark the query as resolved.