In my earlier post about new features in Thesis 1.7, I mentioned that I was having a problem with the new page redirect feature. I now have a solution to the problem, so I'm going to explain how the feature works and then what to do if you have the same problem.

What does the redirect feature do?

This new feature lets you take a long, ugly URL and turn it into a short, easy-to-remember one. This is especially helpful when you want to display the URL in a printed piece, like a newsletter or on a flyer, where people can't click a link to go to the page.

For example, one of the most popular posts on T4L is one I wrote last year about Twitter hash tags. The URL of the post is:

www.techforluddites.com/2009/02/the-twitter-hash-tag-what-is-it-and-how-do-you-use-it.html

Now let's say I wanted to create a page that people could print out with a list of Twitter resources and I wanted to include that page. If somebody goes to type in that full URL, it would be easy to make a typo and end up getting an error message. So, instead, I'll create an easier URL that is less likely to cause problems. Now the link below will redirect people to the original URL.

www.techforluddites.com/hashtags

This is also handy if I'm talking to someone and they say they don't understand hashtags, I can just say, "Oh, I wrote a post about them. Go to techforluddites.com-slash-hashtags."

Another advantage of the new feature is you can use it to build a more flexible navigation menu. Previously you could only create dropdown menus built of static pages on your site, based on their parent/child relationships. If you wanted to add a link to a post or to an external site, it would have to be its own top-level tab.

For example, let's say you're creating a business website and you want to give your visitors links to several external resources called Site 1, Site 2, and Site 3. Before version 1.7, each of these would be its own tab, which takes up a lot of room on the menu (and gives them more weight than you might like).

The only way you could get around this was to write a custom function. But now, using the new redirect feature, you can simply create a static page for each link and then make them child pages of a top-level page (e.g. Resources). This way, you can create a single dropdown menu using the standard menu design panel, with the submenu items all redirecting to different external sites.

This has been functionality that the Thesis community has been clamoring for for a while, so it's a really great enhancement to the theme.

You can also use the redirect feature if you change the URL of an existing page but want to keep the old URL active in case there are links to it elsewhere that you don't want to break (e.g. Google search results).

How do you create a redirect?

This is really simple. All you need to do is create a blank static page where the permalink is the short URL. Then enter the long URL in the field called 301 Redirect for this Page’s URL in the SEO Details panel.

For the hashtags example I used above, the screenshots below show what I did.

What was the problem?

When I originally tested this, I had an issue where the redirect didn't work consistently. Instead, it would actually show me the blank page I created for the short URL. I posted a question on the fabulous DIYthemes forum and the responses I received helped me realize the problem was related to using the WP Super Cache plugin, which I use to speed up page loading.

Fortunately, I was able to fix the problem by excluding the short URL page from being cached using one of the fields in the Super Cache Edit screen, so I didn't need to disable the plugin altogether.

If you want more information about the redirect feature, the DIYthemes site has a video that shows how to use it in the context of creating pretty URLs for affiliate links. If you have other questions about this great addition to Thesis, send me an email and I'll try to get you an answer!

Posted in Blogging,How To,Social Media,Thesis