• majorAlexa

        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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          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.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • 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

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          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. On-Page Optimization
        4. How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect

        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.

        How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect

        On-Page Optimization
        3
        12
        5572
        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.
        • Taiger
          Taiger Subscriber last edited by

          Hi all I hope that someone can help....

          How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect

          The url in question is:

          How can I fix multiple 404 errors with Wildcard htaccess redirect

          http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/search/Category/luxury_hotels_venues_uk_wedding_venues/exclusive_use_venues/letter/c

          http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/bedfordshire-weddings/franklin-park

          http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/chorley-weddings/curtis-bay

          etc, going to http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business

          the above is just a few examples, google webmaster is showing over  8.000 404 page not found errors.

          Thanks in advance.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Taiger
            Taiger Subscriber last edited by

            Hi Denverish, thanks for your reply, been months since i looked at this problem. It has returned so trying to sort it out. the redirects mentioned did not work. so any suggestions.

            The CMS allows for 301 redirects via a form; place old url at the top of the form and the new url at the bottom and save,

            But as I am trying to create a wildcard 301 redirect, i am not sure what code to place in these fields..see pic

            tai

            MgrqdVB.png

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Christy-Correll
              Christy-Correll Staff last edited by

              Hi Tai, were you able to implement Matt's suggestions?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Christy-Correll
                Christy-Correll Staff last edited by

                Hi Tai! Any update on this issue? Please let us know so we can help! Thanks.

                Christy

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Taiger
                  Taiger Subscriber last edited by

                  Hi Matt, sorry for the delay in getting back.

                  Just working on your suggestions, I will let you know if it works

                  T

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Matt-Williamson
                    Matt-Williamson @Taiger last edited by

                    Using the redirectmatch directive to redirect the entire deal directory to deals should definitely work for your situation. You then just repeat for each - so for deals:

                    RedirectMatch 301 /deal/(.*) /deals/$1

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Taiger
                      Taiger Subscriber last edited by

                      Hi Matt,

                      RewriteEngine On
                      RewriteRule ^listing/(.*)$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/ [R=301,L]

                      Did not work,

                      other urls flagged up in Google WM are/deal/ new: /deals/

                      http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deal/location/uk-england/buckinghamshire-weddings/newport-beach

                      http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/deals/

                      thanks Matt

                      Matt-Williamson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Matt-Williamson
                        Matt-Williamson @Taiger last edited by

                        Hi Tai,

                        I understand what you are saying in regards to making it easier with all the different URLs, however you will need to specify some start point in terms of being one level down from the domain root else you are effectively placing a wildcard on the whole domain, which wouldn't work when you are still working on this domain. So you need to try to identify the few main category URLs such as /listing and so on in order to create a rule.

                        Did the redirect I give you work for all URLs apart from the one listed? It should have worked for that.

                        An alternative you can try is:

                        RewriteEngine On
                        RewriteRule ^listing/(.*)$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/ [R=301,L]

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Taiger
                          Taiger Subscriber last edited by

                          Hi Matt, thanks again.

                          Yes we are trying to redirect old urls to the relevant pages.

                          As we have so many old urls from old cms system which had different url structures, to do a wildcard to catch all 404s would be great. (wordpress plugin wp redirection achieves this http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/)

                          RedirectMatch 301 ^/listing/.*$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business

                          But it did not redirect

                          http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/location/uk-england/essex-weddings

                          Thanks for your time on this.

                          Regards Tai

                          Matt-Williamson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Matt-Williamson
                            Matt-Williamson @Taiger last edited by

                            Hi Tai,

                            I had a look at your site homepage and from your examples I could see you have relative urls which can cause 404 errors and as you mentioned 8000 I thought this could be part of your problems - no domains in your main navigation links so /business rather than www.yourdomain.com/business in coding - so no base URL can cause this. I took one of your links you mentioned to check if your hrefs were relative.

                            Putting what I mentioned aside for a second do you just want anything that is /listing and /deal redirecting to /business?

                            Have you tried this for the listing example and repeat for the others such as /deal/:

                            RedirectMatch 301 ^/listing/.*$ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Taiger
                              Taiger Subscriber last edited by

                              Hi Matt, and thank you for your response.

                              Not sure if i understand the solution to this problem though. The http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/listing/......./ are from old legacy urls, and we have many. I am not sure why google webmaster is still picking up these old urls. but having 8k old not found urls is a worry.

                              Regards Tai

                              Matt-Williamson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Matt-Williamson
                                Matt-Williamson last edited by

                                You can fix this issue much easier than trying to sort out redirects in htaccess. You are coming across this issue because your site uses relative URLs rather than absolute.

                                Example:

                                A relative URL isn't tied to a base URL so:

                                /business

                                Absolute would be:

                                www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business

                                Using relative means that when you visit a page your link is relative to that location so if I was on

                                www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business and visited the same llink it would become

                                www.5starweddingdirectory.com/business/business unless redirected.

                                Having to fix this issue in htaccess can get messy for this and it would be much simpler to change your nav links in the template of your site. I checked this was the case in your sites source code to be certain and you definitely use relative URLs.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • 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

                                • leadforms

                                  301 Redirects - Large .htaccess file question

                                  We are moving about 5000 pages from root into different folders. We need to individually 301 each page because the are sitting at root level now: mysite.com/page.com We want to move them to: mysite.com/folder/page.html etc I dont think redirect match can works because of the different files names and folders they are being moved in to. Will 5000 entries in .htacess slow site loading? Any other suggestions how to handle?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | leadforms
                                  0
                                • Unbranded_Lee

                                  301 Redirect or landing page

                                  Hi everyone. I'm currently doing some SEO for a client, at the moment he has some landing pages which are categorised, but the category is set as a 302 redirect. I have a dilemma whether to 301 redirect to the landing page or make a page for each category. The link structure is as follows - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/product/ so currently this is set as a 302 redirect - http://examplesite.co.uk/products/fire/company-1/ Do I make this page a category page and link the page to the children with some on-page optimisation or 301 redirect it?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | Unbranded_Lee
                                  0
                                • jeeyer

                                  Dynamic URL Parameters + Woocommerce create 404 errors

                                  Hi Guys,
                                  Our latest Moz crawl shows a lot of 404-errors for pages that create dynamical links for users? (I guess it are dynamic links, not sure). Situation: On a page which shows products from brand X users can use the pagination icons on the bottom, or click on: View: / 24/48/All.
                                  When a user clicks 48 the end of the link will be /?show_products=48
                                  I think there were some pages that could show 48 products but do not exist anymore (because products are sold out for example), and that's why they show 404's and Moz reports them. How do I deal with these 404-errors? I can't set a 301-redirect because it depends on how many products are shown (it changes every time).
                                  Should I just ignore these kind of 404-errors? Or what is the best way to handle this situation?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
                                  0
                                • aronwp

                                  What to do with multiple forms and thank you pages

                                  Hi Everyone, I'm wondering what to do with form and thank you pages. I asked a question a long time ago about the contact page as noindex and was told by people that its better to leave it and write content for it and thats what we did. Now I have a client that does self storage and they have 4 locations and each location has a reservation page with a basic form but no content. Each page also redirects to a thank you page with tracking codes. There's a total of 6 "thank you" pages with different codes (this was done by yellow book). 4 "reserve your storage pages", 2 pages to pay for storage with iframes to 3rd party payment portals. I was told to noindex these pages but I'm not sure so I'm asking here. I was also told to nofollow and remove them from sitemaps. Thanks Aron

                                  On-Page Optimization | | aronwp
                                  0
                                • webbutler13

                                  Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?

                                  I want to forward all urls to http:www.mysite.com but am a little confuse because I am getting duplicate content error: Pages with Duplicate Page Content as of Jan 15http://titanappliancerepair.com/ 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.html 1 duplicate*****************************************************************What should I put ion htaccess file so I can forwardhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.htmlhttp://titanappliancerepair.comhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/to  http://www.titanappliancerepair.comor what is the correct way to do it?I'm confused because when I enter http://titanappliancerepair.com/ in browser it showshttp://titanappliancerepair.com so how can it be considered duplicate content?.Can someone help?I have godaddy and they have gave me this code to put RewriteEngine on
                                  rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com [nc]
                                  rewriterule ^(.)$ http://www.coolexample.com/$1 [r=301,nc]What is correct?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | webbutler13
                                  0
                                • uBreakiFix

                                  How to Structure URL's for Multiple Locations

                                  We are currently undergoing a site redesign and are trying to figure out the best way to structure the URL's and breadcrumbs for our many locations. We currently have 60 locations nationwide and our URL structure is as follows: www.mydomain.com/locations/{location} Where {location} is the specific street the location is on or the neighborhood the location is in. (i.e. www.mydomain.com/locations/waterford-lakes) The issue is, {location} is usually too specific and is not a broad enough keyword. The location "Waterford-Lakes" is in Orlando and "Orlando" is the important keyword, not " Waterford Lakes". To address this, we want to introduce state and city pages. Each state and city page would link to each location within that state or city (i.e. an Orlando page with links to "Waterford Lakes", "Lake Nona", "South Orlando", etc.). The question is how to structure this. Option 1 Use the our existing URL and breadcrumb structure (www.mydomain.com/locations/{location}) and add state and city pages outside the URL path: www.mydomain.com/{area} www.mydomain.com/{state} Option 2 Build the city and state pages into the URL and breadcrumb path: www.mydomain.com/locations/{state}/{area}/{location} (i.e www.mydomain.com/locations/fl/orlando/waterford-lakes) Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks!

                                  On-Page Optimization | | uBreakiFix
                                  0
                                • CMC-SD

                                  How much juice do you lose in a 301 redirect?

                                  Our site has a number of, shall we say, unoptimized URLs. I would like to change the URLs to be more relevant; if a page is about red widgets, the URL should be www.domain.com/red-widgets.html, right? I'm getting resistance on this, however, based on the belief that you lose something significant when you 301 an old URL to a new one. Now, I know that if you have a long chain of redirects, the spiders will stop following at some point, and that is a huge problem. That wouldn't apply if there's only one step in the chain, however. I've also heard that you lose some link juice in a 301, but I'm unsure how serious that problem actually is. Is it small enough that we'd win out in the long run with better-optimized URLs?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | CMC-SD
                                  0
                                • novellseo

                                  Too many links on page -- how to fix

                                  We are getting reports that there are too many links on most of the pages in one of the sites we manage. Not just a few too many...  275 (versus <100 that is the target). The entire site is built with a very heavy global navigation, which contains a lot of links -- so while the users don't see all of that, Google does. Short of re-architecting the site, can you suggest ways to provide site navigation that don't violate this rule?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | novellseo
                                  2

                                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 - 2025 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.