Redirecting urls /p/product-code/ to /p/product-code.html in bulk

[jsdva]

SEO company has found, and wants redirected, 665 product urls with 301 redirects.

URLs are in the form of:

/p/product-code/

But, they want them to be:

/p/product-code.html

I came late to the party, and have no idea why those were formed as /p/product-code/ in the first place and since been indexed as so.

Is there some rule for htaccess that would cover all of them. Like a bulk rewrite? I know I can do canonical, but they want redirects on them all. I am really hesitant to add 665 redirects to an htaccess file that is already way too large for my comfort.

I hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.

Jamie

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

ok, not an htaccess wizard, but this might work (and MAKE A BACKUP :) )

RewriteRule ^/p/([^/.]+)/$ /p/$1.html [R=301,L]

this says: If the url begins with /p/ (after the domain) than take what's between / and / and then stuff it in where $1 is.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Are you using URI management? The relevant desirable URI's could be imported, set as the canonical, etc. It is really not desirable, both for performance and Apache-dependency reasons, to handle these kinds of things via ever-growing htaccess files.

[ids]

David, which URIs could be imported? Example?

Scott

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Are you using URI management? The relevant desirable URI's could be imported, set as the canonical, etc. It is really not desirable, both for performance and Apache-dependency reasons, to handle these kinds of things via ever-growing htaccess files.

Oh, yea, those could be handled by URI by chaging the 'slugify' code. I don't even thing you'd need to import. Couldn't you just change the pattern and generate the URI/s

[ILoveHostasaurus]

David, which URIs could be imported? Example?

Scott

I believe you can import additional URI's per product, and then set the canonical URI + redirect.

[ids]

So, make this the canonical?

/p/product-code.html

Anything else that needs to be done?

Scott

[jsdva]

Are you using URI management? The relevant desirable URI's could be imported, set as the canonical, etc. It is really not desirable, both for performance and Apache-dependency reasons, to handle these kinds of things via ever-growing htaccess files.

Never got a notice that anyone replied, David. Thank you for asking. No, it is currently not using URI Management. What is the alternative in that case?

[jsdva]

Oh, yea, those could be handled by URI by chaging the 'slugify' code. I don't even thing you'd need to import. Couldn't you just change the pattern and generate the URI/s

Not using URI Management, Bruce. Stick with your example?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

If you can't switch to URI management, I don't know of a better solution...but URI management, long term, is a better solution....now if only URI management could be used for non-miva URLs,

[jsdva]

If you can't switch to URI management, I don't know of a better solution...but URI management, long term, is a better solution....now if only URI management could be used for non-miva URLs,

Yep, the new site was designed (not by me), and launched in December. For the life of me, I have no idea why they didn't go ahead with uri management while in development. Some things are just a head scratcher.

I always appreciate your help and advice Bruce! Thanks. I will go with it.

[jsdva]

RewriteRule ^/p/([^/.]+)/$ /p/$1.html [R=301,L]

Just an update. The rewriterule didn't work. This is one of those weird-case scenarios. There are all kinds of things going on in this htaccess file. For example, I found the following near the bottom of the file, which may be an issue:

    Remove .html and .htm:
        ### Single line below is used to remove the .html not needed in URL
        ### Except when inside documentation
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/documentation/site/
        RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]

        ### Single line below is used to remove the .htm not needed in URL
        ### Except when inside documentation
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/documentation/site/
        RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm /$1.html [NC,L]

But, I took that out and the problem links (/p/product-code/) went to Not Found pages. Not optimum, nor what the SEO company wants them to do (redirect to: /p/product-code.html).

Then, we have this, which looks like the directory of /p/

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s
RewriteRule ^p/([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_code=$1&keylinkp=$2 [QSA,L]

Kind of thinking out loud here, but input is appreciated.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Rewrite conditions and rules are analyzed in order until a L directive is encountered, at which point no further parsing of the htaccess is performed. You'll have to organize the rules in the order they should be processed. Or move it all into uri management, preferably.

[jsdva]

Rewrite conditions and rules are analyzed in order until a L directive is encountered, at which point no further parsing of the htaccess is performed. You'll have to organize the rules in the order they should be processed. Or move it all into uri management, preferably.

That made sense David! You and Bruce are geniuses! Thank you both! I got it!

For posterity:

Proper positioning of:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s
RewriteRule ^p/([^/]+)/([^/]+)$ /p/$1.html [R=301,L]

Did the trick!

[jsdva]

Hopefully going to URI Management soon!