Forward an old web address to a new one

A redirect sends a visitor from one web address to another. They open the old address and land on the new page without noticing. Search engines follow the redirect too, so the old address keeps passing its standing on to the new one.

You need one when:

• You moved your site to ContentMetric and some pages now have different addresses.
• You renamed a page or a blog post. ContentMetric does this one for you, see below.
• You retired a page and want its visitors to land on something useful.

Redirects work on every plan. Owners and Admins can change them; Editors can see the list.

Rename a page and the old address still works

When you rename a page or a blog post, the old address forwards to the new one from your next publish. You do not set anything up. The pair shows under Automatic redirects in the site's Settings, under Redirects. These are made for you and cannot be changed there. If you put a page back at the old address, the page wins.

Add your own redirects

1. Open Settings for the site and go to Redirects.
2. Under Custom redirects, type the old address in Old address, for example /blog/old-post.
3. Type the new address in New address, or press the page button in that box to pick one of your pages. For a page on your site, start with a slash, for example /design/new-page. For another website, type the full address starting with https://.
4. Leave the type on 301 Permanent, which suits most moved pages and posts. Use 308 Permanent for an address that a form sends to, because it keeps the form's data.
5. Press Add. A line at the top then says how many changes are not live yet. Press Publish there, or publish as usual.

Good to know:

• With or without the closing slash is the same address. /blog/old-post and /blog/old-post/ both work, so you only add it once.
• Capital letters do not matter.
• Anything a visitor adds after a ?, such as a campaign tag, travels along to the new address.
• If the new page does not exist yet, the rule is still saved and a note tells you. This helps when you add redirects before the pages are ready.

Forward a whole folder

To forward everything under an old folder, end the old address with /*, for example /blog/*.

• If the new address also ends with /*, for example /journal/*, the rest of each address is kept. /blog/my-post goes to /journal/my-post.
• If the new address does not end with /*, every address in the folder goes to that one place.
• The folder address itself, /blog, is not part of the rule. Add a separate rule for it if you want it forwarded.
• A rule for one exact address beats a folder rule. If two folder rules both fit, the longer one wins.

Add many at once with a CSV file

1. In Custom redirects, press Import CSV.
2. Choose a file with two columns: the old address, then the new address. A third column with 301 or 308 is optional. A first row with column names is fine.
3. Check the preview. It counts the rows To add, Already there and Refused, and lists the refused rows first with the reason.
4. Press Import, then Publish.

Refused rows do not stop the others. Fix them in your file and import again. Rows that are already there are skipped, so importing the same file twice is safe. Export CSV gives you your current list.

What we will not accept

• The home page. It cannot be forwarded away.
• A rule that points to itself, or that would send a visitor round in a circle.
• A chain. If /a goes to /b and /b goes to /c, point /a at /c instead. If a chain appears later, for example because you renamed the page /b goes to, we join the two when you publish, so visitors still go to the final address in one step.
• A second rule for the same old address. Edit the first one instead.
• An address starting with http://. Use https://.

A live page always wins

If the old address is a page that is live on your site, the page is shown and the redirect waits. The rule starts working once that page is removed or renamed.

Make it live

Redirects take effect on your next publish, like everything else. Publish in the redirects line publishes your whole site, including any pages you have changed but not yet published. After that, a change can take a few minutes to show, because visitors and search engines may be shown the earlier answer for a short while. Open an old address in your browser to check it, in a private window if you still see the old answer.

Using the AI helper

If you have connected an AI assistant to your site, you can paste it a list of old and new addresses and ask it to add them. It can add up to a thousand at a time and tells you which were added, which were already there and which were left out. It does not publish until you say so.

Common questions

I deleted a redirect. When does the old address stop forwarding? From your next publish. The "not found" page shows again for that address.

Can I redirect to another website? Yes. Type the full address starting with https://.

Do redirects slow my site down? No. Your pages are served exactly as before. The list is only checked when someone opens an address that is not a page.

Why does an address not forward? Check that you pressed Publish after adding it, and that the old address is not a live page on your site.