Redirections Problem

  • Resolved SylverTECH

    (@sylvertech)


    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello Rankmath,

    I think there is a structural problem with the REDIRECTIONS processing.

    Fundamentally, there are 2 sets of Settings that impact the way or workflow of how the Redirections are processed:

    1st: The “Redirections” settings TAB found in the main settings (General Settings).

    2nd: The “Redirections” settings found in Rank Math menu located in the WordPress left menu bar.

    The problem is that on certain circumstances, the second group of redirections don’t have the chance to be followed and executed. This is particularly true when a redirection of the 2nd group is short circuited by the of the “Fallback Behavior” of the “General Settings”.

    For example, if you have a specific page (url/slug) that is missing (has been deleted or moved elsewhere, in another site or subsite), we are unable to have this particular redirection followed/executed, because the main “Fallback Behavior” of the General Settings has prevalence over this second type of settings and these ones redirected the link to the Default 404 fallback page or any other fallback page set up in this setting.

    SOLUTION:
    To this end, I think there should be one of two possible solutions:

    1st: I thinK that the “Redirections” settings found in the main settings TAB (General Settings) should NOT be mandatory! They should be blank at start and activated

      ONLY

    if the user choose to do so by checking a box or by setting some Fallback actions.

    2nd: I think that the “Redirections” settings found in Rank Math menu located in the WordPress left menu bar should have priority over the “Redirections” settings TAB found in the main settings (General Settings).

    I look forward to have your thoughts on this subject and/or any solution that you foresee to this problem…

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Plugin Author Rank Math SEO

    (@rankmath)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello @sylvertech,

    Thank you for contacting the support and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

    It seems to be working fine on our end. If in the Redirections settings, it is set to redirect all 404 pages to the homepage, and then if someone creates a redirection to redirect one 404 page to some other page, that redirection is taking the priority. Here’s a screencast:
    https://i.rankmath.com/XkjsrQ

    Assuming you are using the latest version of all the plugins, themes, and WordPress (please update if not yet), it would seem like a conflict with one of the plugins or the theme you are using.

    To determine that, please follow this troubleshooting guide:
    https://rankmath.com/kb/check-plugin-conflicts/

    Only the site admin would know and your users won’t be affected by this troubleshooting.

    Looking forward to helping you.

    Thread Starter SylverTECH

    (@sylvertech)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Thank you for your fast reply.

    Looking at the test you’ve made and the video you referenced me to in your reply https://i.rankmath.com/XkjsrQ, I’m not sure that it’s prove my point.

    The main reason why I say this is because the 2 redirections point at the same url, the https://rankmath.com/ Homepage. So you can NOT determine which one of the 2 redirections settings brought you at your Homepage first.

    To make your test more relevant, you should point your “404-page” on the “Redirections” of the WP left menu bar to any other page than the one which is set in your “Fallback Behavior” in your main settings TAB (General Settings).

    I think this should better prove my point.

    Respectfully!

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by SylverTECH.
    • This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by SylverTECH.
    • This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by SylverTECH.
    Plugin Author Rank Math SEO

    (@rankmath)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello @sylvertech

    Sorry for the confusion.

    In our screencast, we are using a local site and that one 404 page was pointing to the live website rankmath.com. The fallback behavior is redirecting to the local homepage.

    Or are we missing something here?

    Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.

    Thread Starter SylverTECH

    (@sylvertech)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    But If the 2 RankMath Homepages pointed to by the 2 Redirections settings (being local or live) have the same content, I suspect that you won’t see any differences and thereby, which redirection brought you there…

    That’s why I suggested to you at the end of my last reply to point “your “404-page” on the “Redirections” of the WP left menu bar to any other page than the one which is set in your “Fallback Behavior” in your main settings TAB (General Settings)”.

    In other words, you should point this “404-page” to any other existing page than your Homepage (being ‘local’ or ‘live’).
    For example: “404-page” ==> https://rankmath.com/some-existing-subpage/.

    I think such a test should give a much more convincing (or non confusing) result, result being clearly one way or the other.

    Hoping this will help clarify the issue…

    Plugin Author Rank Math SEO

    (@rankmath)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello @sylvertech

    Can you please check the following screencast and let us know if that’s not something you are talking about?
    https://i.rankmath.com/S6CPtG

    Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.

    Thread Starter SylverTECH

    (@sylvertech)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello @rankmath,

    I should have been more specific in my first post regarding this issue. It’s my error!

    I made a lot of tests since your last reply, and indeed, if you try to access a ‘non-existing-page’ (which I think is the case for your ‘404-page’, isn’t it ?), the specific Redirection is Followed correctly.

    The real problem that I encountered however, is with pages which are addressed with a ‘?query-string’ (http://sylver-tech.com?page_id=xxx). These pages are not intercepted and redirected through the specific Redirections settings. They are processed through the main ‘Fallback Behavior’ Redirection settings and never followed. This applies to any ‘non published’ pages, being Draft, Pending, Trash, etc.

    I look forward to see if you can reach the same conclusion and if so what you can do to solve this issue?

    Regards

    Plugin Author Rank Math SEO

    (@rankmath)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello @sylvertech,

    Sorry to disappoint but that feature of using ? in the redirections is unfortunately not available at this time.

    With that being said, there are existing feature requests, so I’ve added your vote to our internal suggestions lists. If your suggestions are something that we’re able to introduce, I’ll be sure to let you know.

    Thank you.

    Thread Starter SylverTECH

    (@sylvertech)

    5 years, 1 month ago

    Thank you @rankmath for your follow up.

    Glad to see that this feature may be considered by you in a near future.

    Just to add to its utility, I would like to add that this ‘?query strings’ redirection problem make a lot of sense since that when you delete a page (trash) or put it in ‘Draft’ mode because its content has been replaced or is better covered by another ‘Published’ page, you may want to redirect its traffic to a more comprehensive or a newer page, before to definitively get rid of it.

    Moreover, in our case, it happened that Google (GSC) has indexed such pages, and when they were completely removed, Google stubbornly persisted to marked these pages as ‘ERROR’ pages and we weren’t able to instruct Google to redirect these particular pages to their replacement pages. At the end, we had to rely on the ‘Fallback Redirection’ feature to redirect these pages to the SykverTECH Homepage (and mostly NOT on the 404 page) to satisfy GSC, but this was not the ideal solution…

    I hope this sheds some more light on this topic…

    Respectfully

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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