Redirection Procedure

Background

The University of Derby has not, historically, had a process in place for ensuring that redirects are dealt with in a controlled and organised manner. This has lead to a culture where the University website and it’s pages are seen as malleable and are subject to frequent movement and change with redirects being used as a prop to support this culture. Additionally, there has been a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of “page not found” as negative, and to be avoided at all costs. As a result of this, the University now has over 5000 redirect rules, each of which has a direct cost in terms of our site performance. When a user visits our website, for every page they visit the entire list of redirect rules must first be evaluated, and this must occur multiple times per page as individual parts of the web page are downloaded. The number of these redirect rules increases our server response time and also increases server load.

Additionally, the University has recently invested in a dedicated link-shortening service with its own specific URL (dby.ac). We would like this service to be used as an alternative to internal redirects for vanity URLs from now on.

Purpose

To ensure that there are clear guidelines to the rationale, types, methods, and implementation of redirects.

Scope

The document covers all departments who come into contact with the University of Derby group of websites.

Definitions

• Web server or server: The computer where the University website is stored and delivered from. When accessing derby.ac.uk you connect and retrieve web pages from the Server.

• Request: When accessing a web page you are sending a “request” for the server to deliver that page.

• Response: Once a request has been made the server can “respond” to that request in a number of different ways.

• Redirect: The process of re-routing one URL to another.

• Temporary Redirect: A redirect that is marked by the webserver as being temporary, or subject to change at a later date, generally used for vanity URLs.

• Permanent Redirect: A redirect that is marked as permanent, historically used when a page is moved to a new location.

• 301: Server response code for a permanent redirect.

• 302: Server response code for a temporary redirect.

• Vanity URL: A redirect used purely for the purpose of making a link shorter or easier to remember, for example in print publications.

Procedure statements

[Guidance: Each procedure statement should reflect the basic objectives of the organization and a description of the general guiding principles or rules. ]

Procedure

Redirection can be segmented into three broad-stroke categories:

• Redirects that occur because a vanity URL is required.

• Redirects that occur because a page has been moved/renamed.

• Redirects that occur because a page has been deleted.

Requesting a redirect

Currently, all redirects require technical intervention and must be requested via the digital marketing team.

Redirects require the following information in order for us to action them:

• The to redirect address. This is the current URL of the page, or where the redirect should go.

• The from redirect address. This is the former URL of the page, or in the case of vanity URLs, the requested URL which is to be used in marketing materials, etc.

Vanity URLs

Up until recently, vanity URLs have been created as a part of the main University website. There are several methods for doing this within T4, none of which are ideal, and this has lead to a cluttered and disorganised website. Additionally, many of our short URLs are external links. When a user clicks a derby.ac.uk link they expect to arrive at our website - if they don’t this can look like a spammy practice and can make us seem untrustworthy.

This year we have launched a new link-shortening service - dby.ac specifically for vanity URLs, which is aimed at tackling the above issues. From now on all of our vanity URLs will use the dby.ac branding.

Guidance for developers

Our short URL service is available at app.short.cm - you will require logins to access the service. Adding a link is self-explanatory, but note that all of the links are set to be case-insensitive to make it easier for our users. Please use appropriate tags for each link to ease account administration.

Redirects that occur because a page has been moved/renamed

There needs to be a strong case to move a page once it has been created on the website. Our site architecture has been specifically designed to make our website understandable and consistent for our users, and ideally, once in place, a page will not be moved. The pages of a website should be seen as generally immutable, like a home address, rather than as documents that can be renamed and refiled at will.

However, occasionally it will be necessary for a page to be moved - this often happens with course pages, for example, where a course is renamed. In these instances, we may analyse the traffic patterns of the particular page to determine whether a redirect is required (we may reject a redirect on the grounds that a page is low traffic, or has a low number of entrances), and we will implement a redirect if appropriate.

Guidance for developers

If a redirect is a simple a → b URL remap, the redirect should be placed in the first instance, in the redirects.csv file. More complex redirects which are not capable of being handled by the csv should be added to the htaccess file. All redirects should be set up, where possible, with the 302, last rule, and case-insensitive flags set [R=302,L,NC]

Newest redirects should always go to the top of the file. Changes to the csv or htaccess files should be committed to Git and subject to peer-review as per other code guidelines.

Redirects that occur because a page has been deleted

In most circumstances when a page is removed from the website, it should be allowed to simply go to a 404 - ‘page not found’ page. Redirecting a removed page can cause frustrations for users as they do not necessarily know that the page has been removed. The only exception to this is where a page has been removed because it contains identical, or nearly identical, content to another page. Please bear this in mind before requesting a redirect from a deleted page. There is a reasonable chance that we will reject the request.

Guidance for developers

If a page satisfies the requirements for being redirected, follow the same policy as above for a moved/renamed page.

Related procedures

https://derbyunidigitalteam.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DM/pages/1062240257

References/citations

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