Redirecting URLs

If you happen to change the URL of any already-published entry, it is recommended that you redirect the previous URL to the newer one. This is considered as an appropriate SEO best practice as users trying to visit the older link to the website will be automatically taken to the newer link, instead of seeing a ‘Page not found’ error.

Additional Resource: If you're interested in knowing what are the best practices when it comes to managing SEO for your content, here's our SEO Best Practices for Contentstack-powered Websites guide that you can refer to.

Let’s learn how to manage URL redirects using your Contentstack-powered websites.

Create a content type to handle URL redirects

You need to create a separate content type to manage the redirection of the changed URLs.

1. Create a new content type within your Contentstack stack.
2. Provide a suitable name for the content type, such as Redirect.
3. Set it as a Multiple content type of Content Block type.
4. Add two Single Line Textbox fields to the content type and name them From and To, respectively.

This creates your Redirect content type. You can now add your redirect links as entries.

Create entries to manage redirection of URLs

If you change the URL of any published entry, perform the following steps to manage URL redirects:

1. Create an entry for your Redirect content type.
2. In the From field, mention the URL that has been modified or no longer exists.
3. In the To field, mention the new URL.
4. After you enter relevant content in all the available fields, save and publish the entry to the specified publishing environment.

Manage your code to redirect URLs

Finally, the main and irreplaceable task is to write the script that will manage your Redirects. It should check the URL in the “From” field and get redirected to the URL in the “To” field.

Now, if any user visits the old URL, he/she will be redirected to the new URL automatically.