The Redirect manager module helps you to keep the rank and search rating for pages (whole sections if needed) which were replaced, moved or removed from your site. The module works by a similar principle as Sitecore Aliases. All redirects are in one place, it’s simply to hold everything in the same format. The module integrates with the Sitecore UI and is very simple to use.

Important

    This module is built using .NET 4.0, so the site should be running on.NET 4.0 Application Pool;
    Redirect works only when source item/items (which should be redirected) is/are unpublished or don’t exist;
    Response time depends on the number of redirects, it is recommended to keep it under 10 000 and it will take less than 1ms to process the redirect;
    Using this module you can create redirects for whole sections which contain thousands of pages in just a few clicks. Also, the module supports multisite configurations;
    The module was tested with Sitecore 6.4.1 rev. 120113 (Update 6), Sitecore 6.5.0 rev.111123 (Update-2), Sitecore 6.5.0 rev.120427 (Update-4).

Installation

Install the RedirectManager

Note: After the installation the sitecore will be restarted!

Uninstallation

Remove files:

   1.  \bin\Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.dll
    2. \App_Config\Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.config

Remove items:

    1./sitecore/system/Modules/Redirect Manager
    2. /sitecore/templates/Redirect Manager
    3. /sitecore/system/Settings/Validation Rules/Field Rules/Url Validation

How to use the module

The redirect module supports 3 types of redirects:

    1. From item to item – redirect one page to another;
    2. From section to item – redirect website section to one page;
    3. From section to section – redirect website section to another section.

Add new item from appropriate template under the “/sitecore/system/Modules/Redirect Manager” folder. All templates contain only 2 shared fields:

    Base item/section – single-line text, contains path to the page/section which should be redirected;

Note: path can start from “/”, but it is not mandatory. For the item to item redirect you can add .aspx extension, for example “/Solutions.aspx” or it can be as for other types “/Solutions/”.

    Target item/section – link to the item/external page or to the section start item on which should be redirected.

Let's consider in more details each redirect type.

Item to item redirect

Use item to item redirect if you want to create redirect from one page to another. Base item field contains path to the original page which should be redirected. The module supports different formats of path as described above. Target item field should contain link to the sitecore item or external link.

Section to item redirect

Use section to item redirect if you want to create redirect for the whole section to one page. It can be useful if you need to unpublish or remove some section from your site. Base section field contains path to the sections start page. Target item field should contain link to the sitecore item or external link.

Section to section redirect

Use section to section redirect if you want to create redirect from one section to another. It can be useful if you need to rename some section on your site. Base section field contains path to the sections start page. Target item field should contain link to the start item of target section.

What was done in version 2.0:

   1) Search speed was improved;

 2)     2) Now item to item and section to item redirects supports query string;

   3)  Added RegEx redirect.

Now you can use RegEx redirects when you need complex logic. If you want to rename or move section with thousands pages the RegEx redirect work faster instead of section to section, also it compare full requested url with start item and virtual folder with expression, for other types of redirects without them. It’s very important when you use virtual folders for your sites.

Here few examples of usage: 

- Expression: "^(\/Sverige\/Kunder\/\w+.*|$|\?)()"

  Value="/Sverige/Kunder"

  It does the same that section to item redirect.

- Expression "^(\/Sverige\/Kunder)(\/|\.aspx|$|\?)"

  Value = "/Sverige/Kunder" />

  It does the same that section to section redirect.

What’s new in version 2.1:

• Added ability to check page presentation (can reduce number of redirects). Now pages without presentation will be processed by module too, also if you want to add redirect to the page without presentation the redirect will be ignored. Using the following setting in the config file you can enable or disable this functionality.

<setting name="Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.CheckPresentation" value="false" />

• Added remote event handlers for scalability supporting;

• Added “last use” field which will be updated automatically when the redirect will be used;

• Added more logging for understanding what redirect was used, which pages where processed and for what pages the redirect was not found;

• Added report with all redirects. Choose Redirect Manager folder (“/sitecore/system/Modules/Redirect Manager”) and switch to “Redirects report” tab. Here you can find all redirects with useful information about them.

• Added ability to remove redirects which were not used for a long time. Open “Developer” ribbon and here you can find “Remove” button.

In the config file you can find following setting which indicates which redirects will be removed if they are not used for some period (in days):

<setting name="Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.RemovalDate" value="60" />

• Added protection from cycling (related to RegEx redirects);

In the config file you can find following settings:

<setting name="Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.EnableCyclingProtection" value="true" />

<setting name="Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.RecursiveAttempts" value="3" />

For normal operation the cookies should be enabled in the user’s browser.

• Added ability to rebuild whole list of redirects for each time when redirect data was updated. The sort order of redirects is very important for the module. Because it will use only the first redirect which can find. And as you know the module creates the list with redirects only with the first request to sitecore. But if you add new redirect in specific place of item structure, it will be added to the end of list. It can be a problem, so it is better to spend few milliseconds to rebuild whole list automatically than show a wrong page to user. In the config file you can find following setting which give you the ability to enable or to disable this functionality:

<setting name="Sitecore.SharedSource.RedirectManager.RebuildRedirectsList" value="true" />

• Added redirect code for each redirect. If setting is empty, the default value from config will be used.

Features:

    Sitecore rule engine will be supported.