Trying to use .htaccess for 301 redirects

I'm trying to use an .htaccess file to accomplish 301 redirects from my old web site, http://webpages.charter.net/jasonevines/ , to my new one, http://www.hypersyllogistic.com . (I had been using JavaScript redirects, but I've read 301's are more search engine friendly.)

But many of the pages on my old Charter site either won't redirect, or will redirect only sometimes. Could the culprit be a mistake in my .htaccess file on my old complimentary Charter server?

Here's what I have in it:

redirect 301 /badessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/5
redirect 301 /bush.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/6
redirect 301 /carpenter.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/1
redirect 301 /civorterr.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/3
redirect 301 /clinton.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/4
redirect 301 /common.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/fparchives/1
redirect 301 /entteen.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/5
redirect 301 /goreplot.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/3
redirect 301 /guncontrol.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/9
redirect 301 /impopoli.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/1
redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/
redirect 301 /links.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/links.php
redirect 301 /litessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/6
redirect 301 /machiavelli.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/5
redirect 301 /mencken.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/2
redirect 301 /military.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/4
redirect 301 /mj.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/8
redirect 301 /morality.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/3
redirect 301 /nursing.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/2
redirect 301 /persessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/1
redirect 301 /peters.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/4
redirect 301 /pledgesat.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/2
redirect 301 /poetry.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/3
redirect 301 /sat.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/7
redirect 301 /shatner.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/1
redirect 301 /tocqueville.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/6
redirect 301 /writings.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/writings.php
redirect 301 /zoroastrianism.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/2

Code (markup):

Thanks!

 

Your .htaccess file is formatted correctly and this should work. A couple of things to check:

1. .htaccess files are notoriously sensitive to CR format. I've found that if the line breaks look good in Notepad on a PC, then you're good to go. If you made it on a Mac they are probably jacked.

2. .htaccess support does need to be enabled in Apache, and this may be up to your ISP whether they support it or not. Check their FAQ's.

Just my two cents, others may have better ideas.

 

If your files will redirect sometimes then that would suggest that your old host does support .htaccess, and if there was corruption in the .htaccess file I would expect all your old pages to return a 500 Server Error.
When you say that some pages will only redirect sometimes, what happens the rest of the time ? Do the old pages serve, do you get an error, etc ?

If a particular page sometimes redirects correctly and sometimes serves the old page, that sounds like there are multiple copies of your website, and specifcally of the .htaccess file. Could your old host be load-balancing somehow such that the files for your site exist on more than 1 machine ? If they are transparently load-balancing and synchronising file changes across different machines you may have to wait until the files have been synchronised and then everything will work fine.
If your redirection is still not working after a day, maybe, then I would get in touch with the old host and ask them what's going on.

You could also try installing something to enable you to look at the HTTP headers which are sent with a page, that might tell you something. If you're running FireFox there's an extension called LiveHeaders or Live HTTP Headers or something ( don't have the link to hand I'm afraid ) that would do the job.

cheers

johnt

 

The old pages appear, without redirecting anywhere.

I've downloaded it, but it doesn't seem to tell me anything.

 

Hmm, if the old pages appear it does sound like there's multiple copies of your .htaccess file being served.
I'd check with your host.

The Live Headers extension allows you to capture and examine the HTTP headers which will show you the HTTP response code, cookies etc. The response code can be helpful when trying to track down these sorts of error, but in this case it sounds like you probably get a 200 ( OK ) response, so it wouldn't help.

Check with your hosting company.

 

Hi
is this .htaccess here webpages.charter.net/jasonevines/
because if not if it is in root it wont work have to extend to

/jasonevines/badessay.htm whatever to

expat

 

I tried that, but it still doesn't work.

Besides in, in my FTP program, my single directory isn't /jasonevines/, it's /.

 

Besides in, in my FTP program, my single directory isn't /jasonevines/, it's /.

that maybe but the site structure is domain/subdir/subdir/....

which is in unix speak translated to ~/www/subdir/subdir etc

thus when you set the host folder on ftp to /subdir/ you only see and access whats in subdir not what is in domain root.

.htaccess is processed like css cascading
e.g. if root has .htaccess this is processed first than if there is a .htaccess in subdir this is processed next.... etc

I also assume that you have the following top entries just in case

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks

as your host may have switched off rewrite engine
Symlinks allows for transparent sub structure to be processed.

Check top level .htaccess than next level and so on

Expat

 

Here is what I have now:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks

redirect 301 /jasonevines/badessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/5
redirect 301 /jasonevines/bush.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/6
redirect 301 /jasonevines/carpenter.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/1
redirect 301 /jasonevines/civorterr.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/3
redirect 301 /jasonevines/clinton.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/4
redirect 301 /jasonevines/common.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/fparchives/1
redirect 301 /jasonevines/entteen.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/5
redirect 301 /jasonevines/goreplot.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/3
redirect 301 /jasonevines/guncontrol.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/9
redirect 301 /jasonevines/impopoli.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/1
redirect 301 /jasonevines/index.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/
redirect 301 /jasonevines/links.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/links.php
redirect 301 /jasonevines/litessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/6
redirect 301 /jasonevines/machiavelli.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/5
redirect 301 /jasonevines/mencken.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/2
redirect 301 /jasonevines/military.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/4
redirect 301 /jasonevines/mj.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/8
redirect 301 /jasonevines/morality.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/3
redirect 301 /jasonevines/nursing.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/2
redirect 301 /jasonevines/persessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/1
redirect 301 /jasonevines/peters.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/4
redirect 301 /jasonevines/pledgesat.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/2
redirect 301 /jasonevines/poetry.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/3
redirect 301 /jasonevines/sat.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/terracescroll/7
redirect 301 /jasonevines/shatner.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/satires/1
redirect 301 /jasonevines/tocqueville.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/6
redirect 301 /jasonevines/writings.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/writings.php
redirect 301 /jasonevines/zoroastrianism.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/collegepapers/2

Code (markup):

It still doesn't seem to work.

 

but your ftp is to /
and pages you load show in whateverdomain.com/jasonevines/newpage.htm

so you loading this .htaccess effectively to whateverdomain.com/jasonevines/.htaccess

change one line

redirect 301 badessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/5

try that page

cheers
Martin

 

No change.

Also, I've found that the Web Developers Toolbar provides header information. All the pages produce 200 headers.

 

I think you can't run .htaccess on this server as I can access it from the outside.

I can only think of two options ask the hosting to do a generic 301 for you

and you can do another detailed 301 on your new host (if they allow this)

as you already run mod_rewrite there at the end would be the list
redirect 301 badessay.htm http://www.hypersyllogistic.com/article.php/honorswriting/5

I assume your htm pages won't process php so a php redirect is out

you can try - it looks like this top of page

<?php
// Permanent redirection
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.somacon.com/");
exit();
?>
Neither Java nor Html meta refresh do send a 301 so it's worth persuing this.As I said sorry I'm out ofoptions hopefully somone else can helpExpat

 

I just called Charter, who is providing the old webspace, and I was told they don't support any server-side scripting or usage of Apache services. So are 301 redirects just denied to me then?

 

Since you can't use any of the above methods, as far as I know you are out of luck. Hopefully someone else will chime in with another option.