Am I redirecting wrong?

[lesliekirk]

I need to change some product codes so I thought I could use the URI Management to redirect to the new code. On the product edit screen for the product I was fixing I changed the code to what I needed it to be and updated it. I then went to the URI Management tab for that product and created a a 301 Redirect to Canonical to the newly created product code from the old one. I also created a new Canonical URI. When I tested it, it didn't work. I got the "We're sorry but it appears that product "yada yada" is not available at this time." message. So I thought, well maybe I need to update the htaccess file, so I when to the htaccess tab at URI Management screen and clicked update. Still no joy. What am I doing wrong?

[gsam]

I've been doing the same thing with success and the only thing that might be different is that I click the regenerate button.

From the product admin screen.
1. type="canonical" +URI="a-good-seo-name.html"
2. type="normal" +URI="my-product-code"
3. type="301 Redirect to Canonical" +URI="old product URL"
4. click "Regenerate"

[lesliekirk]

Forgive me if I don't quite grasp what you are doing - I need to make sure I'm doing what you are doing

I have a product with a product code that I need to change - can I change it in the product's Product Code field or do I need to create a new product with the corrected code?

Or are you not changing the product code and using these steps to correct it?

I think I'm stuck at trying to figure out what I do with the bad product code.

[mcrmedical]

I've been changing some of our product codes recently. We have the /product/code.html type structure and here's what I do:
1) Change the product code from the OLD code to the NEW code by changing the Product Code field. It is not necessary to create a new product.
2) After changing the product code go to URI tab for that product and update the existing Canonical URI entry to new URI, so for me it is changing the entry from "/product/OLD.html" to "/product/NEW.html"
3) Add a URI for the redirect selecting "301 Redirect to Canonical" and entering "/product/OLD.html" Note that this field needs the old URI, not just the old product code.

Your post said "301 Redirect to Canonical to the newly created product code from the old one", and that phrasing made me question what you're doing there. In the 301 redirect you're not adding a redirect from the old product code, but from the old product code's URI.

[lesliekirk]

I may still be doing something wrong, but from your instructions I have added a couple of "normal" URI's to the products that have what I would consider poorly formatted product codes. Even the URI Management won't let me add one back that I accidentally removed.

1 - I leave the "bad" URI untouched (as the canonical) since I can't do anything to it without causing some sort of error message.
2 - I add /product/bad%20code.html as a type=normal
3 - I add /product/bad+code.html as a type=normal
4 - Click Regenerate

The broken links are now working - but I'm still wanting to fix these "bad" product codes. Since the admin will not let me enter the OLD URI because of the space in it, I'm sort of at a loss as to what I should do. Obviously "Use Strict Validation for Codes" was turned off at some point and I should turn it back on, but it doesn't help being off when it comes to these URI's

[lesliekirk]

Here's the problem, I can't make any change to the Product's poorly formatted URI. The "system" won't let me:

Screen Shot 2016-07-26 at 8.08.21 AM.png

[lesliekirk]

Yup, that's what I've been doing with the method I'm using - it works as I need it to.