Hey Everyone -
I’m happy to introduce Detour Pro and upgrade to the Detour extension. Some info on what this Module can do:
Basic Redirect
The most basic type of redirect is by adding an original URL and new URL. For example, lets say you’ve just redesigned your site with Expression Engine and you have a bunch of URLs you have to redirect. Instead of messing around with an .htaccess file, you can easily add these to Detour Pro and be on your way. Let’s say you have moved
<a href="http://example.com/my/old/file.html">http://example.com/my/old/file.html</a><a href="http://example.com/seo/friendly/goodness">http://example.com/seo/friendly/goodness</a>, you can simply add:
URL string to match: my/old/file.html
Detour to: seo/friendly/goodness
Editing Existing Detours
To edit a detour, click on the URL string to match name and you will be able to edit all fields.
Redirection Methods
For each Detour you can select the redirect method, either 301 or 302. 301 tells Google that it is a permeant redirect, whereas a 302 is a temporary redirect. For some more information, check out this SEO Moz article: Redirection.
Start and End Dates
Start and end dates are a new feature for Detour Pro and helpful for many reasons. For example, lets say you want to set up a redirect to only be active in the month of March. You can select March 1st as the start date and March 31st as the end date. This is helpful if you’re running a promotion and don’t want to mess with changing templates, remembering to switch them back, etc. Start and End Dates can be used independently of each other so you can have either both, just a start or just an end. Using just a start date is good if you want to set up your templates now and have them trigger redirects on a certain date. End dates are useful if you want to “expire” a redirect that you might use again later.
To remove a start or end date, click on the URL string to match and you can select “Clear Start Date” or “Clear End Date” and submit that form to remove a start or end or both.
Wildcard Redirect ( % )
Another great feature is the wildcard. This type of redirect will detour ALL traffic from a the URL string and past the wildcard (%) to a new location. For example, if you want to redirect
<a href="http://example.com/blog/files">http://example.com/blog/files</a><a href="http://example.com/blog/files/more_files">http://example.com/blog/files/more_files</a><a href="http://example.com/newblog">http://example.com/newblog</a>, you would use:
URL string to match: blog/files%
Detour to: newblog
Sample:
<a href="http://example.com/blog/files/some/files/here.html">http://example.com/blog/files/some/files/here.html</a><a href="http://example.com/newblog/">http://example.com/newblog/</a>
Wildcard Redirect with Segment Replacement (%% )
Building further on the Wildcard Redirect, you can also do a redirect with segment replacement. This is useful if part of your segment or directory structure changes. For example, you want to move
<a href="http://example.com/blog/my_article">http://example.com/blog/my_article</a><a href="http://example.com/newblog/my_article">http://example.com/newblog/my_article</a>, you can use:
URL string to match: blog%%
Detour to: newblog
Sample:
<a href="http://example.com/blog/my-entry">http://example.com/blog/my-entry</a><a href="http://example.com/newblog/my-entry">http://example.com/newblog/my-entry</a>Be careful of where you place slashes in both the string to match AND detour to
Hit Counter
Another requested improvement to Detour Pro was the addition of a hit counter. Now you can see how many times a detour has been used including the ability to use that column to quickly filter results to see which redirects are being used the most.
Filtering and Searching
Detour Pro provides a quick way to seach and filter your detours. Use the search box to filter out detours to quickly edit/delete existing detours and you may also set your number of details per page. You can also click on the table headings to sort detours ascending and descending to quickly find information that you need.
Detour Pro on Devot:ee: http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/detour-pro
Detour Pro product page: http://cityzen.com/addons/detour_pro
Let me know if you have any questions!
Mike