Personalized 404

I just converted a client’s non-CMS site into MODx. Apparently people bookmarked several primary pages, which of course sends them right to the 404 page.

Is there a way to map these commonly accessed pages to their new URL? I don’t know how many or exactly which pages because the client can’t get me that info other than traffic has dropped 50% since we launched the MODx site.

Is what I’m asking possible?

Hi,

i guess you’ll have to go for some 301 redirections (in .htaccess), or if you are using Revo have a look @ Redirector.

Hope that helps.

Ideally you want to do the mapping as described above (.htaccess redirects, or RewriteRule depending on what sort of changes there have been in URLs), but you might also want to double check their figures. If the 404 is generated within MODx it should be going to a specified resource - which should have analytics code in it - ie even if the traffic is going to the wrong page, it should still show up in logs/analytics.

When this sort of massive traffic drop has happened to me in the past a little forensic work showed that the previous person responsible for reporting on web stats was at best misguided, and at worst, dishonest.

If you are using Evolution, check this: http://github.com/zaigham/Virtual-Aliases

helps you add the urls on per resource basis via a TV.

Thanks Zi. I’m going to look into that and report back in a few years (days if you know what I mean).

I should also note that this is Brian Stanback’s code. I wish he would develop for MODx again because his code has always been the most intelligent and effective.

Just curios about Redirector and Virtual Aliases. They almost do the same thing, isn’t it?
When moving an old site(e.g PhpNuke) to Modx what is the proper way to handle 301 redirects or 404?
Are there other things I should worry about?

Thx

I installed Virtual Alias 0.2 I have the config correct, the System event selected, and the Alias TV created with the correct name Aliases.

The instructions say:
// Aliases should be added to the TV, one per line.
// Omit any leading or trailing slashes as well as the default suffix (usually .html)

Theoretically, the alias named thisone should automatically redirect to the resource that the alias thisone is used on. Instead I get this Apache error message:

Moved Temporarily

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache Server at domainname.com Port 80

Now what? I’m on Evo for this project. I have 8 more sites to convert to MODx but not if the Virtual Alias is going to throw this up.

I’m going to try it on my server to see if it’s a server issue, and post back here....

Yep, it’s a client server issue as this plugin redirects right to the alias it’s located in.

So now what do I do? I don’t know how to troubleshoot it except post php(info). What info would help you great people troubleshoot this issue?

Thanks!

Quote from: cipa at Nov 03, 2010, 11:15 PM

Just curios about Redirector and Virtual Aliases....

Cipa, VirtualAliases is for Evo, and the other for the Revo.

Quote from: Peter at Nov 08, 2010, 05:31 PM

I installed Virtual Alias 0.2 I have the config correct, the System event selected, and the Alias TV created with the correct name Aliases.

The instructions say:
// Aliases should be added to the TV, one per line.
// Omit any leading or trailing slashes as well as the default suffix (usually .html)

Theoretically, the alias named thisone should automatically redirect to the resource that the alias thisone is used on. Instead I get this Apache error message:

Moved Temporarily

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache Server at domainname.com Port 80

Now what? I’m on Evo for this project. I have 8 more sites to convert to MODx but not if the Virtual Alias is going to throw this up.

I’m going to try it on my server to see if it’s a server issue, and post back here....

Yep, it’s a client server issue as this plugin redirects right to the alias it’s located in.

So now what do I do? I don’t know how to troubleshoot it except post php(info). What info would help you great people troubleshoot this issue?

Thanks!

Hmm, I used it for several sites and never ran into this. Are you sure you don’t have duplicate aliases somewhere?

You can PM me with the details, I’ll look at it and see if I can figure out.