How To Set Up Advanced 301 Redirects

This tutorial is designed to show you how to use the referring URL to micro-target your visitors to specific landing pages or different sites. Now before you go jumping all over me for suggesting something spammy, let me just say there are very legitimate reasons for doing this. Especially since SEO is a curse word over at Digg.

301 redirects using .htaccess to redirect your whole site

Inevitably, some of you are here to redirect your whole site to a new domain name in PHP, so, I am going to throw you a bone. The rest of you can skip down to the next section.

Paste this in the .htaccess file of your old domain.

1. Options +FollowSymLinks
2. RewriteEngine on
3. RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

It is imperative that you not lose any of your link juice. So if you are switching to a new URL structure you can use something like this in your .htaccess file at the new site to quickly redirect each page to the new URL.

1. Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html

Many do not know about this feature, but Google Webmaster Tools now has a spot to tell them about transferring a new domain. I did it recently and highly recommend you follow the instructions when changing domains.

Basic Page 301 Redirect

Its time to start building our script. Lets start with the basic 301 redirect for a PHP page:

1.  
2. <?php
3. Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
4. Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
5. ?>

Grab the referring URL

1.  
2.  <?php
3. $ref = getenv("HTTP_REFERER");
4. echo $ref;
5. ?>
6.  

The above snippet of code puts the referring URL into a variable. We can now check the variable and use the information to set up a conditional 301 redirect. So lets parse our new variable for “digg”.

1.  
2. $digg = "digg";
3. $result = strcspn($ref, $digg);
4.     if ($result != strlen($ref)) {
5.         return $result;
6.     }
7.     return false;
8.  

To stick with our previous digg example, the following code (Alpha) is used for a Digg redirect.

1.  
2. <?php
3. //////  Get Referring URL  /////////////
4. $ref = getenv("HTTP_REFERER");
5.  
6. ////// Check for digg  //////////////
7. $digg = "Digg";
8. $result = strcspn($ref, $digg);
9.  
10.  
11. /////// If it is not Digg, redirect
12. if ($result == strlen($ref)) {
13.   Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
14.   Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
15.     }
16.    
17. //////////////  If it is Digg, show regular content…/////////////
18.  
19.  

I have not tested this script as of yet. I just wrote it, but it should work. When testing is complete I will make a note here.

13 Responses to “How To Set Up Advanced 301 Redirects”

1. Ruud Hein says:

   November 12, 2009 at 7:19 am

   Broken image from a local file: file:///C:/Users/Jason/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.png
   .-= Ruud Hein´s last blog ..Insert Adsense in Content in Wordpress =-.
2. How To Friday | Search Engine People Blog says:

   November 13, 2009 at 10:19 am

   [...] How To Set Up Advanced 301 Redirects [...]
3. Bonnie@Database Programming says:

   November 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm

   Thanks for the very nice explanation of advanced 301 redirects. I’ll use it.
4. Jason says:

   November 14, 2009 at 7:19 am

   @Bonnie, let me know how it goes.
5. Eren@ Embracing Blogging says:

   November 15, 2009 at 8:07 am

   Hey Jason,
   I’m setting up a redirect from a domain to my subdirectory blog.
   But I’m sure that by adapting this a bit I’ll get it done
   Thanks for the step by step.
   Deliciousing + stumbling it.
   All the best,
   Eren
   .-= Eren@ Embracing Blogging´s last blog ..Free Twitter buttons, icons – Follow me on Twitter images =-.
6. Girish Chandran says:

   November 15, 2009 at 8:59 am

   Thanks for this incredible explanation. I always messed up the 301 redirects in my website and was worried about the way search engines treating bad redirects. Now I think I can do it myself without flaws.
7. Jason says:

   November 15, 2009 at 12:52 pm

   @Eren, I am sure you will be able too, let me know if you run into any problems…thanks for the stumble and delicious.
8. Jason says:

   November 15, 2009 at 12:55 pm

   @Girish, glad you found it useful. 301’s are not that difficult once you have done them a time or two…you can always go back and check them and make sure they are working. Use the original URL and paste it in this tool.
9. Helen Hunt@PC Repair says:

   November 25, 2009 at 3:56 am

   Thanks for the very nice explanation of advanced 301 redirects. I’ll use it.

   I love it
10. Chris Jones@Free PS3 says:

    January 12, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    I’ve always avoided 301’s thinking it was a difficult area. It seems to be relatively straight forward though. I suppose when you think a about it a lot of large companies use redirects on their sites to send you to the right pages (for example depending on your location).
11. Alan@Tulsa Home says:

    January 15, 2010 at 10:49 am

    Jason, thanks for briefing the complex terms associated with 301’s and I really liked the tool you recommended to girish. I checked my website and found out several poky issues, which I am gonna fix without my techie’s help. Thanks to your post which coaxed me to take this decision .-= Alan@Tulsa Home´s last blog ..Winter and Holiday Home Tips =-.
12. Jason says:

    January 18, 2010 at 9:29 am

    @Alan, glad I could help.
13. Mariah@free nintendo wii says:

    January 29, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    I’m really not here to learn how to set up advance redirects I thought it be interesting to read this.
    .-= Mariah@free nintendo wii´s last blog ..Free Nintendo WII Console =-.