Some help with Redirection issues

[shaunm]

Hi,

This one URL when run through all the 'redirection checker' tools report as 301 redirecting to a 404 page(Misspelling). But in reality when I type in the URL in the search bar directly, it's not redirecting to any page and the content is available on the URL as supposed to be.

Now, I wonder why the tools report the page as 301 redirecting to a non existent page? Weird isn't it? Or am I missing something?


Thank you all.

[phranque]

have you tried WebmasterWorld's HTTP Response Status Code Check Tool?
http://freetools.webmasterworld.com/tools/header-checker-tool/ [freetools.webmasterworld.com]

[shaunm]

Thanks for answering :-)

I tried that too, it says the same. They all report the URL as 301 redirecting to a relative path URL which in turns return 404.

Any idea why it's happening like this?

[lucy24]

What happens when you try the same request using something like Firefox's Live Headers? Be sure to empty the browser's cache before experimenting.

There have been a couple of earlier threads about redirect-checking tools. Got a vague idea some tools get confused about host-level redirects such as with/without www.

301 redirecting to a relative path URL

What exactly does this mean?

[g1smd]

It may mean that the redirection target has been specified without protocol and hostname.

That would be a big problem.

[shaunm]

Thanks Lucy!

I am not sure how to use that "Firefox Live Headers'. I installed it and typed in the URL directly in the search bar and then clicked add-ons->Extensions->Live HTTP Headers->Options.

Under the 'Headers' tab it shows
Referer: The URL
Connection: Keep alive

Is that how it works?! Much confusion over how to use it.

301 redirecting to a relative path URL

What exactly does this mean?

I meant that all the HTTP status checkers report

http://www.example.com/software/overview.aspx 301 redirecting to /software/overview.aspxY

Which in turn returns 404 HTTP status. But the URL isn't redirecting to any such like that.

Thanks for helping!

[lucy24]

:: detour to refresh memory ::

You have to select the "Live HTTP Headers" menu option before you put in the request. It isn't retroactive. You'll see a separate little Live Headers window opening up.

Once you've got the hang of it, you will probably want to go into the LiveHeaders prefs ("config" tab on my version) and exclude non-page extensions such as .jpg and .css. Unless, of course, those are the specific filetypes you want to take a closer look at. Most of the time it's just more clutter to plow through.

[dstiles]

A 301 should redirect to a valid URL. If that URL does not exist OR is mis-spelt OR (for linux/unix) has incorrect capitalization then it should invoke a 404. Does that make sense / ring a bell?

Link checkers may not show this second response if only set to follow a single link depth.

[shaunm]

Thanks everyone for answering :-)

It was really weird why it happened. But it looks like problem such as this appears when there is a live update to the site.

Thanks again

[dstiles]

What do you mean by "live update"? The only circumstance I can think of that could cause disruption to the IIS system is a change of server hardware or a reinstalltion of the OS or, at least, of the IIS.