Cannot redirect properly

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Cannot redirect properly

LilyTousi

7:44 am on Mar 10, 2015 (gmt 0)

Hi,
I want to redirect a subfolder to a new url, but my redirection always add breadcrumbs (not sure if it is the right word) into the new folder.

For example ...

http://photos.mydomain.com/thumbnails.php?album=71

is redirected to ...

http://www.mydomain.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=71

I want to redirect everything to the main page ...

http://www.mydomain.com/gallery/

That's it!
because the structure of the new site doesn't contain any thumbnails, index, albums, etc.

How can I do this ? I tried many things and they all failed :-(

thanks

not2easy

1:40 pm on Mar 10, 2015 (gmt 0)

And it's a good thing they failed. You should not redirect all pages to one page, Google calls that a "Soft 404" because people do not get the page they want and can't get to the page they want from where you are trying to send them.

LilyTousi

1:56 pm on Mar 10, 2015 (gmt 0)

I understand, but there is no more links to the old photoalbums in my updated website. They all now point to the new photoalbums. So there is no reason to spend countless hours to redirect links that are no more related to the actual website. Anyways these old links will eventually phase out.
regards.

not2easy

2:56 pm on Mar 10, 2015 (gmt 0)

They all now point to the new photoalbums.

Then that is where the old pages should redirect to. The idea of redirecting is so that old links and bookmarks (and SERPS) won't be lost due to changes. Sending those clicks to the home page is a bad user experience and Google really does not like soft 404s. A 404 at least is not going to hurt your site, but soft 404s can.

If the page will not exist on the new site, you would be doing yourself a favor to noindex those pages before they are gone. If the old page has an new equivalent replacement, that is the page to point the old URL to.

lucy24

7:35 pm on Mar 10, 2015 (gmt 0)

I tried many things and they all failed

Awright, come clean. What-- exactly-- did you try, and what were the consequences?

If a page is genuinely gone, with no equivalent in new URLs, you should return a 410. And if so, make sure you have a nice custom 410 document. On many sites, you can simply use your existing 404 page, but you have to say so explicitly.