Redirect Non-existent Posts

[TCH-Tim]

I recently dropped my entire Wordpress blog (876 posts) in lieu of a smaller, easier to maintain website. In just the one day since I dropped the database and deleted the WP install directory, I have seen the number of 404 errors go up significantly.

 

I would like to set up a redirect such that if someone is looking for anything in the /wp directory (ie. /wp/somecategory or /wp/somecategory/somepostid and so on) they just get sent back to the new front page /index.php. There is no /wp directory anymore, there is no Wordpress install anymore, so the "post not found" WP error page is no longer there. Instead it's all ugly 404's.

 

I'm not concerned about lost search engine traffic due to content not being where Google and Yahoo think it is, but if somebody comes to my site I'd at least like them to see a real page.

[TCH-Rob]

Set up a redirect in cPanel of htaccess that sends anyone to /wp to your index. You are a smart cookie but if you need help let us know.

[wampthing]

For those of us that arent smart cookies... I would love to hear the solution.

I had assumed that it could be easily done by doing something like the following in the htaccess file.

 

redirect 301 /wp/ http://www.mysite.com/catchall.html

 

Just for kicks and giggles I had tried to do it myself, but it only worked if I typed in www.mysite.com/wp/

 

Am I not on the right track?

[click]

I believe "RedirectMatch 301 ^/wp/.*$ http://www.mysite.com/catchall.html" should do it.

Edited March 7, 2006 by click

[TCH-Rob]

Dave,

 

You assume I "AM" a smart enough cookie to know that answer?

[TCH-Don]

Click, that looks like the way to go.

[wampthing]

Dave,

 

You assume I "AM" a smart enough cookie to know that answer?

 

Rob,

With 8188 post, There is no doubt in my mind.

 

 

 

Click,

Thank you. I am a smarter man having met you.

[TCH-Bruce]

Rob,

With 8188 post, There is no doubt in my mind.

Post counts mean nothing except that we talk alot.

[TCH-Thomas]

Dave,

Take away google from Rob and we are all equal.

[TCH-Rob]

Haha! I just guess alot. What is Google?

[TCH-Tim]

I believe "RedirectMatch 301 ^/wp/.*$ http://www.mysite.com/catchall.html" should do it.

Works like a peach. Thanks. I'll get a handle on this .htaccess stuff yet. Does anybody know of a good comprehensive listing of what all that junk is?

[stevevan]

I'm sure you (or Rob) could Google something up! If you find something, drop a link or two so that anyone else who is interested can research this too.

[TCH-Tim]

But Rob doesn't use Google. Figured he would just know the answer.

Edited March 8, 2006 by timhodge

[click]

There's a handy mod_rewrite cheat sheet (and a bunch of other good info) here.

[TCH-Rob]

I dont use Google because I AM Google! I find that I use http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml alot when I need to learn something new about htaccess. Steve is right though in a way. There are many resources geared towards teaching htaccess rules out there.

[TCH-Thomas]

That link is now bookmarked, Rob.

[TCH-Rob]

Maybe I should change my name to Google. Think their lawyers would allow it?

[TCH-Thomas]

Not if you just change to Google, but Google-Rob would be ok I guess, according to

http://www.google-kai.com/

 

About the above link, I have read about this boy before in another place, but I just visited his site for the first time and it looked messed up in Firefox so if you go visit that site, use another browser or it´s text will make no sense.

[TCH-Tim]

http://www.google-kai.com/

People are strange.

[TCH-Rob]

And all over the world at that. Seems we Yanks don't have a choke hold on that department.