Learning Centre

Redirects

In the Govstack Content Management System (CMS), you can create permanent (301) or temporary (302) redirects. You can also manage any redirects that are automatically created by Govstack anytime you move a page within the menu navigation of your website. Review the redirect functionality and learn to to create and manage redirects.

Create a redirect

With the Govstack CMS, you can set up redirect links from your old website to your new Govstack website. This can be useful when you first launch your new site, as some users may go to the old website URL address looking for information. A redirect will automatically direct users from pages on your old website to the new website.

To add a redirect, you need to

Select the 'Content' tab in the Govstack CMS back office
Select the 'Redirects' tab located near the top of the page
Choose the 'Add new redirect' button
This will open the 'Add new redirect' slide-out panel
From the 'Sites' dropdown menu select 'Home'
In the 'Original URL' field, paste the website path. To do this, copy everything after the main domain, from the "/" onward
Select the page destination from the 'Destination' dropdown menu by selecting the arrow to the left of the menu you would like to open
Within the 'Advanced Options' section, the default settings of 'Permanent' redirect and 'Disabled' query string should remain
Once you've finished, select the 'Add' button to complete the process

Advanced options

You can also complete a few advanced options:

If you are creating a permanent 301 redirect, select the 'Permanent' radial button
If you are creating a temporary 302 redirect, select the 'Temporary' radial button
Select the 'Enabled' radial button if the destination requires a query string in the URL

Best practices for redirects

As a best practice when launching a new website, you should create permanent redirects for the following pages:

Homepage
Any landing pages
Contact page
About us page
All main vertical menu pages

Next, we recommend setting up redirects for any top viewed pages from your old website. Typically, this would be the top 50 viewed pages on your website. However, if you have a large website, with over 1,000 pages, we would recommend adding redirects for the top 100 viewed pages from your old site.

Managing URL redirects

The Govstack CMS will automatically create a URL redirect anytime you move a page in your menu or navigation. This helps reduce the number of broken links on your website and allows you to move pages without having to set up new hyperlinks.

To view and manage all redirects within your Govstack CMS, follow these steps:

Select the 'Content' tab in the Govstack back office
From here, choose the 'Redirect URL Management' tab
You will now see a log of all redirects that have been created within the Govstack CMS

You can choose to remove any redirect or disable the redirect tracker.

More information

This section is to provide further explanation and information on some of the terms used above.

Forward Query String

A query string is a set of parameters within a URL that sends additional information. If there are multiple parameters an ampersand will be used. By selecting “enabled” you are ensuring that anything in the query string of the original request is added to the new URL the user is redirected to. This is anything after the first question mark (?) in a URL, including any ampersand (&) options.

For example: Let’s say you are setting up a redirect to send requests from domain.com/oldpage to domain.com/newpage. You enable the “forward query string option” and the user requests domain.com/oldpage?test1&test2. It will forward the user to domain.com/newpage?test1&test2, adding the query string to the request for the new page.

If the option is disabled it will appear as a 404 error if you add the query string options to the end of the URL.

301 Redirect

A 301 redirect is an HTTP status code that is used to redirect the original URL to a new permanent location. The content previously associated with the original URL is now at a new URL. Future requests to the original URL will now be redirected to the new URL.

A 301 redirect is very SEO-friendly because it transfers the majority of the link equity (also known as "link juice") from the old URL to the new one. This helps to preserve the search ranking of the redirected webpage. Using 301 redirects properly when you change the URL of a page on your site or move your site altogether is critical to maintaining your ranking in search engines.

From a usability perspective, 301 redirects help ensure that users and search engines can find your content even if you've moved it. This can be particularly important if you're redesigning your site or reorganizing your content.

When it doubt, it is safer to use a 301 redirect.

302 Redirect

A 302 redirect is an HTTP status code that is used to redirect the original URL to a new temporary location. This is the code that should be used when content is moved only temporarily, such as during site maintenance.

Unlike a 301, a 302 redirect does not pass on the full link equity from the old URL to the new URL. Search engines interpret a 302 as a temporary change and expect the original URL to become available again. Therefore, they may continue to index the old URL and not transfer any link equity to the new URL, which can negatively impact the search ranking of the new URL.

For the user, a 302 redirect works much like a 301 redirect, seamlessly directing them to the correct page. However, it could cause confusion if a user bookmarks or shares the temporary URL, expecting it to continue working in the future.

When it doubt, it is safer to use a 301 redirect.

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