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Using Redirects to Direct Old URLs to Your Website
Using Redirects to Direct Old URLs to Your Website

How to utilize Redirects for your Novi AMS website.

Melisa Smith avatar
Written by Melisa Smith
Updated over 2 years ago

If you have an old URL that is being replaced and do not want to lose web traffic to the page, consider creating a Redirect. When a site visitor navigates to the old URL, the redirect will automatically send them to a new page of your choosing.

What is a Redirect?

A Redirect directs users from an old URL to a new URL. In order for a Redirect to work, we need to have permission and control of the root domain. What this means is that you cannot create a redirect from a site that is not your own.

For example, a redirect cannot be created from your previous AMS such as http://www.yourassociation.OLDAMSCOMPANY.com going to www.yourassociation.com.
​
However, creating a redirect from your domain, such as changing https://www.yoursiteurl.com/meeting-2017 to https://www.yoursiteurl.com/meeting-2018 is an example that will work perfectly.

How to Create a Redirect

1. Head to the backend of your site and select the Static Content tab.

2. Click on Redirects.

3. Enter in the old URL.

Note: Novi will automatically populate the beginning of your old URL with your domain. This cannot be changed. Novi only has permissions to redirect from your root domain.

4. Enter the new URL. 

5. Choose between a Permament Redirect (301) & a Temporary Redirect (302)

6. Save the redirect and you're done! 

Note: You may need to do a hard refresh (Shift + Refresh) to see the redirect immediately.

Choosing between Permanent Redirects (301) & Temporary Redirects (302)

Two common ways Redirects are used:

  1. Old Links: Making sure that old links still work after you have re-arranged your site structure.
    ​Example: https://www.yoursiteurl.com/meeting-2017 is redirected to https://www.yoursiteurl.com/meeting
    ​

  2. Long Links: Verbally send visitors to a page on your website. If you are presenting on stage and you want to send people to a page or event with a long filename, simply create a short redirect that will go to the longer page for simplicity purposes.
    ​Example: https://www.yoursiteurl.com/super-long-file-name-for-the-2018-event becomes https://www.yoursiteurl.com/event.
    ​
    ​Note: The "short" URL should be entered as the "old" URL when setting up the Redirect.

Check out the AE Tip when choosing!

Redirect Tips & Tricks

If you create a redirect and then test it by clicking on the old URL and it doesn't open the new URL (e.g. the page loads a "404 Page Not Found" error), try adding the following to the old URL:

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