Let’s say you’re checking out your Google search console statistics and you find that some users have clicked through to a non-existent page on your site like this:
Oh no! A bad user experience means an immediate bounce back to the search results, and a possible signal to Google that your site isn’t giving users what they want.
The problem is that those pages don’t even exist on your site! Or they used to exist at one point, but not anymore. Google unfortunately didn’t get the memo and still sends visitors to your non-existent page. What do we do about it? The best thing is to use a 301 redirect to send users to another page that gives them what they’re looking for. If it doesn’t exist, create it! Obviously that page is doing something right by getting clicks in the SERPS. You need to capitalize on it.
Normally, this involves installing a plugin to redirect a page in WordPress. While that’s not a bad idea, it’s a bit excessive if you just want to redirect one or two pages. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to accomplish this without a plugin. Either using your functions.php file in your themes directory, or via a PHP code insertor.
So let’s get started.
Step 1: Get the “From” URL Slug and the “To” URL Slug
Before we get into the code, you need to specifically write down two things:
- Which URL needs to be redirected
- To which URL should the users go to?
There are a few stumbling blocks here. First, check and see whether URLs on your site end with a “trailing slash” or not. In other words, are you this:
example.com/test-page
or this:
example.com/test-page/
To redirect a page in WordPress, we’re going to be matching strings in code. It’s extremely important to know exactly how your URLs are written.
Once you have the URLs, create the URL slugs. The “slug” is that part of the URL without the domain name, or https (or http).
So for the above example, the slug will be:
/test-page
Similarly if your URL is;
https://www.example.com/05/18/some-page
The slug will be:
/05/18/some-page
Note the initial slash “/” in front of the slug. This is going to be important.
Why Use Slugs and Not URLs?
In case you’re wondering why we don’t do a simple URL matching, the reason is simple. We want to insulate ourselves from potential changes. Maybe you create a subdomain for a page, or move your blog into a directory. Perhaps you’re using the HTTP protocol and one day want to move to HTTPS.
Without the slug, all your attempts to match the URL will fail because the initial part is changing. But the slug is eternal. The slug is forever!
Step 2: Code in functions.php to Redirect a Page in WordPress
The second step is to open your “functions.php” file located in your theme (preferably a child theme). Now paste the following code into it:
function redirect_page() {
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) &&
($_SERVER['HTTPS'] == 'on' || $_SERVER['HTTPS'] == 1) ||
isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO']) &&
$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO'] == 'https') {
$protocol = 'https://';
}
else {
$protocol = 'http://';
}
$currenturl = $protocol . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$currenturl_relative = wp_make_link_relative($currenturl);
switch ($currenturl_relative) {
case '[from slug]':
$urlto = home_url('[to slug]');
break;
default:
return;
}
if ($currenturl != $urlto)
exit( wp_redirect( $urlto ) );
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'redirect_page' );
In this code, there are two sections in bold. Namely this one:
case '[from slug]':
$urlto = home_url('[to slug]' );
break;
This is where you enter your “from” and “to” slugs. Replace the sections in bold including the square brackets with the slugs you got from Step 1.
Save your changes, and now when you visit the “from” page, you should be redirected to the “to” page.
Step 3: Add More Redirects
I’ve structured the code in such a way that you can easily add more redirections if you want. For each new redirection, just place a new section like this under the first one:
case '[from slug]':
$urlto = home_url('[to slug]' );
break;
case '[from slug2]':
$urlto = home_url('[to slug2]' );
break;
Just make sure you keep the line “default” after all these “case” blocks and you should be fine. You can now redirect as many pages as you want to other pages without using a WordPress plugin!
I’m a NameHero team member, and an expert on WordPress and web hosting. I’ve been in this industry since 2008. I’ve also developed apps on Android and have written extensive tutorials on managing Linux servers. You can contact me on my website WP-Tweaks.com!
Hello!
Thank you so very much for putting this tutorial together. I just completed several redirects using your code and it worked out, very easy to follow.
I wanted to comment on two things.
I noticed a tiny typo within the post – regarding this specific string of code:
case ‘[from slug]’:
$urlto = home_url(‘[to slug]’);
break;
the correct code you first list works. Where you begin to explain adding it again to execute another redirect and so on the ‘ is missing from within the slug syntax.
It says case ‘[from slug]: instead of case ‘[from slug]’:
It wasn’t a problem at all to spot the typo and figure it out even though I am an utter novice. But I thought I’d mention it in case someone else has a difficulty.
Thanks again for the helpful instructions.
My second comment – once I added the code for the redirects all of my pages and posts, including the main blog page are now showing their slug at the top left of the screen prior to the H1. Would you happen to know why this happened and how I could remove the slugs from displaying?
Hi Milena, thanks for spotting the errors! I’ve fixed the code now and it should work without the slug.
I’d used the slug earlier as a debugging tool and forgot to remove it from the final output. Thanks again!
Hi,
This is great stuff. I have a question. I have two links on my site . Each link when clicked on would go to the custom login page. For eg. link 1 when clicked , would go to the custom login page. From there to the link1 url.
Similarly for link2. Any help in this scenario would be appreciated.
Thanks
David
Hi,
I keep getting different errors when I try to add the code in the functions.php.
There is already over 600 lines of code in my file and I added it at the end – is that the mistake?
If so, can you tell me where in the file I should add the code?
Great article, I feel that I am on my way to solving my issue, so thanks for that.
What if I want to redirect all pages that do NOT have a specific slug to the page that does have that slug? I’m looking for a way to automatically disable and redirect closed offers/signup pages to the current, in-use one, without having to find and modify each expired funnel page individually. I feel I could do it with a modification of this method, does that sound possible and what would you suggest?
Great! But i want to redirect example.com/2/ to example.com/new/2/
And i want it to be done in a way that i will not need to add 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on for each page, this is a pagination function and i dont want to write a code for each new page that will be paginated, so i want one simple code that will take care of redirecting example.com/2/ to example.com/new/2/
example.com/3/ to example.com/new/3/
example.com/4/ to example.com/new/4/
But i wont be adding new redirection with new page numbers.
Am looking at example.com/*. / to redirect to example.com/new/$1 outputs the new numbers here.
Please help me with such code, thanks.
Following code is not working, is there some error ?
function redirect_page() {
if (isset($_SERVER[‘HTTPS’]) &&
($_SERVER[‘HTTPS’] == ‘on’ || $_SERVER[‘HTTPS’] == 1) ||
isset($_SERVER[‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO’]) &&
$_SERVER[‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO’] == ‘https’) {
$protocol = ‘https://’;
}
else {
$protocol = ‘http://’;
}
$currenturl = $protocol . $_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’] . $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’];
$currenturl_relative = wp_make_link_relative($currenturl);
switch ($currenturl_relative) {
case ‘[/news_board]’:
$urlto = home_url(‘[/news-board]’);
break;
default:
return;
}
if ($currenturl != $urlto)
exit( wp_redirect( $urlto ) );
}
add_action( ‘template_redirect’, ‘redirect_page’ );
Muchas gracias. Tu artículo me ha resultado muy útil y he podido resolver un problema de redireccionamiento. Saludos.
It never ceases to amaze me the resourcefulness of the internet. Thanks for this very useful piece of well written code! Work well.
Trying to redirect my home page to another url, buy my homepage ends with .com, NO fwd slash or anything else. TY
Hi Bhagwad!
Thanks for your tutorial.
I’ve tried it for some tests, but on mobile it applies a different rule.
On desktop:
from /my-old-url/page
to /my-new-url
On mobile:
from /my-old-url/page
to /my-new-url/my-old-url/page
Followed the procedure but still not working!
This sounds awesome. Is there a way I could redirect on certain days only? I only want to redirect On saturdays-Tuesday’s. Is this a possibility? Any help would be great. Thanks.
Thank you so much!!! Works perfectly!! (had to do it in the function.php file of the child theme directly, because in wordpress it wouldn’t let me change the file for some reason)
Thanks my friend. Excellent !
Really Thanks alot. Redirecting pages without plugins is awesome.
People like you convert WP users into developers. This trick is so effective and yet simple – saving the installation from one-more-not-necessary plugin.
THANKS
How can the code be modified to perform a 301 redirect?
I am currently using your code and it is working well to perform a 302 redirect.
Much appreciated!
I have modified one line of your code to do indicate it is a 301 redirect as follows
original code exit( wp_redirect( $urlto ) );
new code exit( wp_redirect( $urlto, 301 ) );
it appears to be working on my site. Perhaps you can check and comment.
Thank you.
I think it will be a lot more difficult to maintain those redirects on a bigger WP site with hundreds of redirects (including the old redirects to prevent redirect chains). Maybe it will be good idea to improve the post with some wildcard redirects too. Interesting theme indeed.
Absolutely 100% works. Thanks for sharing.
As a new blogger, I am working with a cheap shared hosting and can’t afford to install so many plugins… It worked, thanks.
Perfect, thanks Chen.
Considering to move all redirects this way. Minus one plugin is always the better solution
Hi Bhagwad!
Thanks for your tutorial.
I have a new subdomain, replacing existing one due to some reasons.
I have two pages with the same slug. The only difference is the subdomain name.
one looks like this: m.site.com/x-y-z while the other looks like: mn.site.com/x-y-z
I was trying to copy emtire urls, but it didn’t work.
Any idea what to do?
I want to redirect just like the old “Refresh” in html header but after 30 seconds not imediately and refresh to a different page