• BBgmoro

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. 301 doesn't redirect a page that ends in %20, and others being appended with ?q=

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        301 doesn't redirect a page that ends in %20, and others being appended with ?q=

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        3
        7
        4461
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Brocberry
          Brocberry last edited by

          I have a product page that ends /product-name**%20** that I'm trying to redirect in this way:

          Redirect 301 /products/product-name%20 http://www.site.com/products/product-name

          And it doesn't redirect at all. The others, those with %20, are being redirected to a url hybrid of old and new: http://www.site.com/products/product-name**?q=old-url**

          I'm using Drupal CMS, and it may be creating rules that counter my entries.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • PeterAttia
            PeterAttia last edited by

            I know this is an old thread, but I actually spotted this issue while trying to fix it myself. I was able to fix it by using quotes and a literal space. So for example, instead of

            RewriteRule ^/products/product%20name$ http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

            use

            RewriteRule "^/products/product name$" http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

            Hope that helps.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Brocberry
              Brocberry last edited by

              I've managed to 301 everything except that pesky %20 url, perhaps because of the %20 or perhaps because that's also the only one in a folder.

              Here's what's worked for simple urls such as www.site.com/old-page

              RewriteRule ^old-page$ http://www.site.com/new-page  [R=301,L]

              But the same format for the %20 hasn't worked:

              RewriteRule ^/products/product-name%20$ http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Brocberry
                Brocberry @Brocberry last edited by

                I think this is the culprit:

                Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.

                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico 
                RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

                At the moment,
                Redirect 301 /old-page http://www.site.com/new-page

                creates
                www.site.com/new-page?q=old-page

                I have tried the 301s both before the CMS rule and after it, without success.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • StreamlineMetrics
                  StreamlineMetrics @Brocberry last edited by

                  Hmmm... I was going to also suggest trying replacing the %20 with an actual space -

                  Redirect 301 "/products/product-name " http://www.site.com/products/product-name

                  Now that you say none of the redirects are working as expected, did you try adding the 301 redirects above the Drupal rules in your .htaccess file? Can you paste the contents of your .htaccess?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Brocberry
                    Brocberry @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                    Thanks for the reply. I tried it but it didn't work, but I given incorrect info in the question, which is now corrected. I had said other 301 were working fine when in fact they weren't. Those without %20 are redirecting to an odd hybrid of urls.

                    After some searching, I think this has something to do with the drupal CMS and the rules it creates in htaccess.

                    StreamlineMetrics Brocberry 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • StreamlineMetrics
                      StreamlineMetrics last edited by

                      Try putting it in quotes -

                      Redirect 301 "/products/product-name%20" http://www.site.com/products/product-name

                      Let me know if that doesn't work...

                      Brocberry 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Browse Questions

                      Explore more categories

                      • Moz Tools

                        Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                      • SEO Tactics

                        Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                      • Community

                        Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                      • Digital Marketing

                        Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                      • Research & Trends

                        Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                      • Support

                        Connect on product support and feature requests.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • SS.Digital

                        Forwarded vanity domains, suddenly resolving to 404 with appended URL's ending in random 5 characters

                        We have several vanity domains that forward to various pages on our primary domain.
                        e.g. www.vanity.com (301)--> www.mydomain.com/sub-page (200) These forwards have been in place for months or even years and have worked fine.  As of yesterday, we have seen the following problem.  We have made no changes in the forwarding settings. Now, inconsistently, they sometimes resolve and sometimes they do not.  When we load the vanity URL with Chrome Dev Tools (Network Pane) open, it shows the following redirect chains, where xxxxx represents a random 5 character string of lower and upper case letters.  (e.g. VGuTD) EXAMPLE:
                        www.vanity.com                                  (302, Found) -->
                        www.vanity.com/xxxxx                        (302, Found) -->
                        www.vanity.com/xxxxx                        (302, Found) -->
                        www.vanity.com/xxxxx/xxxxx               (302, Found) -->
                        www.mydomain.com/sub-page/xxxxx (404, Not Found) This is just one example, the amount of redirects, vary wildly.  Sometimes there is only 1 redirect, sometimes there are as many as 5. Sometimes the request will ultimately resolve on the correct mydomain.com/sub-page, but usually it does not (as in the example above). We have cross-checked across every browser, device, private/non-private, cookies cleared, on and off of our network etc...   This leads us to believe that it is not at the device or host level. Our Registrar is Godaddy.  They have not encountered this issue before, and have no idea what this 5 character string is from.  I tend to believe them because per our analytics, we have determined that this problem only started yesterday. Our primary question is, has anybody else encountered this problem either in the last couple days, or at any time in the past?  We have come up with a solution that works to alleviate the problem, but to implement it across hundreds of vanity domains will take us an inordinate amount of time.  Really hoping to fix the cause of the problem instead of just treating the symptom.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SS.Digital
                        0
                      • brianvest

                        301 redirects Ruby on Rails

                        Can anyone point me to the best way to implement 301 redirects on a Ruby on Rails website?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianvest
                        0
                      • alecfwilson

                        For URLs that require login, should our redirect be 301 or 302?

                        We have a login required section of our website that is being crawled and reporting as potential issues in Webmaster Tools. I'm not sure what the best solution to this is - is it to make URLs requiring a login noindex/nocrawl? Right now, we have them 302 redirecting to the login page, since it's a temporary redirect, it seems like it isn't the right solution. Is a 301 better?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alecfwilson
                        0
                      • Philip-DiPatrizio

                        Putting "noindex" on a page that's in an iframe... what will that mean for the parent page?

                        If I've got a page that is being called in an iframe, on my homepage, and I don't want that called page to be indexed.... so I put a noindex tag on the called page (but not on the homepage) what might that mean for the homepage?  Nothing?  Will Google, Bing, Yahoo, or anyone else, potentially see that as a noindex tag on my homepage?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Philip-DiPatrizio
                        0
                      • SEOTGT

                        301 or 302 Redirects to Mobile Site

                        When it's detected that a mobile device is accessing the site it has the ability to redirect from www.example.com to m.example.com. Does it make more sense to employ a 301 or 302 redirect here? Google says a 301 but does not explain why (although usually I stick to "when in doubt, 301") . It seems like a 302 would prevent passing link juice to the mobile site and having mobile-optimized results also showing up in Google's index. What is the preference here?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTGT
                        0
                      • brianmcc

                        Reverse Proxy better than 301 redirect?

                        Are reverse proxies that much better than 301 redirects? Should I invest the time in doing this? I found out about reverse proxies here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-a-reverse-proxy-and-how-can-it-help-my-seo

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianmcc
                        0
                      • Peter264

                        NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                        Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
                        0
                      • pbhatt

                        301 Redirects After Company Acquisition

                        We recently acquired a company, and now we are going to redirect all of the pages on their site to their respective pages on our site. Do we need to keep the original pages on their site active? For how long? Ideally, we would like to redirect everything and remove the old site entirely so we don't have to pay to keep hosting it. Is this possible? Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt
                        1

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.