Transitioning a site to WordPress – how to deal with redirects?

Hi, Amanda —

I’ve had to handle this problem a couple times. Each time, I used the Redirection plugin.

It helps the new site’s pages have similar paths as the old one. For example, I used to have a static file called resevil.html in a folder called psx. Under WordPress, I created a page with the slug psx then a sub-page called resevil. Then I created a redirection rule to strip the .html from all incoming links. That single rule handled 99% of the traffic coming to my site.

If you don’t have a similar strategy laid out, you may need to create redirection rules on a one-by-one basis for each individual page and its new equivalent.

Let me know if this helps!

-Ken

Thanks for the response, Ken!

Unfortunately the new site is not set up with a similar structure to the old one, so I’m not sure how much luck I’d have using that method.

Do you think I could do some kind of top-level redirect in the .htaccess file that would redirect any page not found within the /wordpress folder on the web server so that it automatically goes to the homepage I’ve set within WordPress?

Amanda,

I’m not savvy with editing .htaccess; it would be safer for both of us if I didn’t advise on that approach. ??

You may still want to take a look at the Redirection plugin, though. Depending on how many pages you need to redirect, it could still prove practical.

-Ken

Hello Ken,

I am exactly in the case you describe : I need to strip .html from all incoming links, but I don’t find how to write the rule. Can you help ?

Thanks a lot,
Serge.

Hi, Serge —

Using the Redirection plugin I previously referenced, I specified the source URL thusly:

/(.*).html

and I have it redirect to here:

/$1/

I hope this helps!

-Ken

Hello Ken,

Actually, I was close to solution but had to issues :
– an extra backslash in source URL : /(.*)\.html
– problem to configure path to .htaccess file in Apache module

Now all works fine.

Many thanks for your help,
Serge.