Redirects

A redirect forwards one address to another. An old address doesn't stop existing when the page behind it does, because it's printed on mailers, saved in people's bookmarks and indexed by Google, so without a rule all of that traffic lands on a "page not found." There are five reasons you'd make one:

• A page moved. Its address changed and every link to the old one needs to follow it.
• A page was retired. There's nothing to send people to, so they go to the nearest useful page instead.
• A campaign needs a short printed address. Something short enough to fit on a mailer or say on air.
• A wrong address is already out in the world. A typo went to print, or a partner linked to the wrong path.
• A short link points off the site. /facebook sends people to the Facebook page.

Redirects are handled by a plugin called Redirection, version 5.7.5. It lives under Tools → Redirection in the WordPress admin sidebar.

Where redirects live

Three things can forward an address, and a request is answered by the first one that matches.

• Cloudflare sits in front of the site and answers first. Domain-level forwarding lives here: mealsonwheelspeople.org goes to www.mowp.org without the request ever reaching WordPress.
• The site's code runs next, ahead of the theme and every other plugin. Redirects left over from past URL changes sit here so they can't be edited away by accident.
• The Redirection plugin runs last, and it's the only one of the three you can see. Everything below is about this one.

If a rule you've added doesn't seem to be working, one of the first two is usually already answering that address. Ask the developer and they can track it down.

The tabs

Redirection puts its sections in a row of tabs across the top of the screen.

Creating a redirect

The example here retires /what-we-do/pdxpop/ and sends anyone who asks for it to the section overview at /what-we-do/.

/what-we-do/pdxpop/

/what-we-do/

Filled in, the example looks like this:

Source URL   /what-we-do/pdxpop/
Target URL   /what-we-do/
Redirect     Permanent

Source URL format

Getting this field wrong is the reason most rules silently do nothing.

• Path only, never the whole address. Write /what-we-do/pdxpop/, not https://www.mowp.org/what-we-do/pdxpop/.
• Start with a slash. A source that doesn't begin with / won't match anything.
• Keep the trailing slash. Pages on this site end in a slash, so /what-we-do/pdxpop/ is the real address and /what-we-do/pdxpop isn't. The safest habit is to copy the address out of your browser's address bar rather than typing it from memory.
• Leave off anything after a ?. Those are query parameters and the plugin matches them with a separate setting. They're easy to get subtly wrong: the same link can arrive with its parameters in a different order, so ?utm_source=mailer&utm_campaign=fall and ?utm_campaign=fall&utm_source=mailer look identical to a visitor and different to a rule. Send these to the developer, along with anything else that isn't a plain address-to-address forward, and they can build a rule that's neither too strict to catch real visits nor so loose it catches what it shouldn't.

Permanent or temporary

Every rule is one or the other, and nearly everything you make is permanent: a page moved or was retired, the change is done, and permanent is what you want.

The difference matters because a permanent redirect is hard to take back. It tells search engines to move the page's ranking to the new address, and browsers remember it, so anyone who follows the old address once keeps getting forwarded even after the rule is gone. A temporary redirect does neither. No ranking moves and nothing is remembered, which is what you want for an address you expect to repoint later.

Permanent for a page that moved or was retired. Temporary for a signpost.

Short links and off-site destinations

The target doesn't have to be a page on this site. Give it a full https:// address and the rule sends people to another website, which is how a short link like /facebook works.

Source URL   /facebook
Target URL   https://www.facebook.com/mealsonwheelspeople
Redirect     Temporary

These are the signposts, so they're the exception that gets a temporary redirect. A social link or a campaign address that will point somewhere new next season is going to be repointed, and temporary keeps that clean.

Open the destination in your browser and copy the address out of the bar rather than typing it. These are easy to get subtly wrong from memory.

One thing is different about these: the destination isn't yours. If the page moves or the platform shuts down, the short link breaks and nothing in WordPress will tell you. Check the ones you have in print once or twice a year.

Picking the address itself:

• Short enough to print and say out loud. /facebook and /gala, not /our-facebook-page-2026.
• Lowercase, no spaces. Hyphens between words if you need more than one, like /spring-gala.
• Obvious rather than clever. Someone reading it off a postcard has one shot at typing it.

Testing

Open a private or incognito window, paste the old address into it and press enter. Your regular browser caches redirects aggressively, which is why a private window matters: it's the only way to see what a first-time visitor sees.

Two things to watch. The address in the bar should change to the new one on its own, and the page that loads should be the page you pointed at. If the address doesn't change, the rule isn't matching, and the source URL is almost always the culprit.

The Redirects list also carries a hit count and a last-accessed date against each rule, which is a second way to confirm one is firing. Those columns only fill in while logging is switched on in Options, so an empty count means the log is off rather than the rule being broken.

The 404s tab

The 404s tab records every address someone asked for that doesn't exist, so it's a running list of links that are broken right now, with real people hitting them.

Sort by hit count and work down from the top. What you're looking for:

• Old page addresses with repeat hits. Something like /what-we-do/meals-for-kids/ showing up thirty times a month is a link in an email or on a partner's website pointing at a page that moved. That's a redirect worth adding.
• Addresses that look like a typo of a real page. Worth a rule if they keep coming back.
• Junk you should ignore. Anything ending in .php, anything mentioning wp-admin or wp-login, long strings of nonsense. That's automated scanning, not visitors, and no redirect will help.
• One-off hits. A single hit on a strange address is noise. Wait to see whether it repeats.

Rows in the 404s list offer a way to create a redirect for that address without retyping it, which is the quickest way to work through the list. Failing that, copy the address and use the normal form.

Common mistakes

Bulk changes and settings

Beyond those, two habits:

• Don't edit or delete existing rules. Some of them have been protecting links for years, and a rule with few hits today can carry traffic from a mailer that resurfaces. Add new ones freely; if an existing one needs changing, check with the developer first.
• Only use the regex option if you know regex. It matches patterns rather than single addresses, so a small mistake can capture far more of the site than you intended. If you're comfortable writing one, go ahead; if you're not sure, send the rule to the developer instead.