URLs and Redirects

User level: Site Owner; Site Administrator

Redirect or alias?

Confused about redirects and aliases? An alias gives your Mosaic page a readable URL instead of the node id (e.g. https://yoursite.web.ox.ac.uk/about-us instead of https://yoursite.web.ox.ac.uk/node/148509). Pages can have more than one alias. A redirect tells the browser to go to a different URL. They are usually used to redirect to a different site, but read on for other use-cases.

 

To create and manage page aliases, redirects for individual pages and redirects for batches of pages go to Site Settings > URLs and Redirects

URLs and Redirects screen

The .web address of your site is tied to the Mosaic platform and cannot be taken elsewhere to use with a non-Mosaic site if you decide to leave the platform. If the .web address is your primary domain and you decide to leave the Mosaic platform, you can also use this redirects functionality to maintain search engine optimisation during the transition to a new site. 

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A url alias is an additional custom url for an item. This can be used to add an alternative url to link to a page, or to simplify a URL and/or make it more user-friendly e.g. www.mymosaicsite.ox.ac.uk/events/marketing/marketingevent1 could be given an alias of www.mymosaicsite.ox.ac.uk/customname.

More than one alias can be defined for a page. Aliases can be used to support changes to page paths when the domain has moved onto a Mosaic site from an old site.

It is usually easier to edit URL aliases from within each page's Settings screen. See the Page Settings documentation for more information.

Note: it isn't possible to redirect your whole site. There are restrictions in place to prevent essential pages, such as /user, from being redirected.

A specific page can be redirected to a different specific page on a different site e.g. /holinshed to http://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/holinshed. Simply define the source (omitting the Mosaic domain name) and the full URL of the destination.

If you need to redirect a page to another URL within your Mosaic site, then use an 'alias'. See above section.

Manage individual redirects

 

Note that 404 responses are cached by the web server for 15 minutes, so if you add a new redirect it may take up to 15 minutes before that redirect takes effect.

In addition to individual redirects, you can create rules that apply to many pages.

Redirects can be used within your Mosaic site, or to a 3rd party site.

Multiple pages to a single page

  • Pages that contain a particular path can be redirected to a single specific page
  • Example: Source = /event/workshops/* and Destination = /our_workshops
    • results in any pages matching /event/workshops/* all resolving to an individual page: /our_workshops. Note, the asterix represents any path after the forward slash e.g. /event/workshops/page1 or /event/workshops/pages/page2

Multiple pages to a different URL with the same end path

  • Use this if you want to retain the page alias (potentially including a sub path) of a URL, but replace the first part of the path.
  • Example: Source = /archive/news/2015/* and Destination =  /articles/* 
    • In this example all pages after /2015/ will be redirected to a new path within the same Mosaic site, but include the same page alias e.g. /archive/news/2015/mypage to /articles/mypage
  • Example: Source = /learningzone/insects/* and Destination = http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/*

Pages with a sub path snippet, redirected to another page (using the same sub path snippet)

  • Very similar to the example above
  • Example: Source = /learningzone/* and Destination = http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/*/index.html
    • Here any pages with a path that includes the prefix /learningzone/* will be redirected to an index page that includes a path that is the same as the source e.g. /learningzone/insects/ to http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/insects/index.html. Instead of 'insects' this could have been minerals and the user would be redirected to /minerals/index.html  i.e. anything represented by the asterix in the source path will be replaced in the destination URL

See examples in the screenshot below:

Screenshot of Mosaic interface

 

Note that 404 responses are cached by the web server for 15 minutes, so if you add a new redirect it may take up to 15 minutes before that redirect takes effect.

This section provides details of which pages have been requested by users, but do not exist on the site. You should define url aliases for the most frequently requested urls so the user can be sent to an appropriate page instead of seeing the missing page (404) message.

If the user links to a page that does not exist on your site, then they will see the site's 404 message. You can customise this in this section.

Note that 404 responses are cached by the web server for 15 minutes, so if you add a new redirect it may take up to 15 minutes before that redirect takes effect.

After saving, if you see an error notification 'Source path must not be an existing path on this site', try these steps. Our example is to redirect a page called Contacts that has alias /contacts:

  • change the primary alias of the Contacts page to contacts-redirect 
  • remove the 'contacts' alias from the page
  • add redirect from /contacts to https://[wherever you want to link to]

We do not recommend redirecting your homepage permanently.  However you may want your homepage to redirect temporarily during a period of transition to a new website or location, and especially if you are retiring a custom domain.  However, note that any other pages without specific redirects will still be accessible via a direct link.  

Note: If migrating to Fresco then a redirect will be set up for you on the Fresco host service, and kept for 4 months, so creating Mosaic redirects will be unnecessary.  If your migrated Fresco website has similar architecture to your old Mosaic site then this redirect will work for links to specific pages that have maintained the same /path. 

Steps to redirect homepage: 

1. Redirect /home to the new location you require

2. Also redirect /homepage/notset to the new location

3. Wait 15-20 minutes, then check on a new browser that the redirect is working when navigating to [your-site].web.ox.ac.uk/

Once you are no longer using your Mosaic website then you must request deactivation. If you need to redirect a custom domain permanently, without repointing it fully at the new site, then talk to your local IT team about options for hosting a redirect on a server they have access to.