Blogger Magic - Redirecting A URL In Your Blog

In 2012, Blogger gave us a suite of useful utilities to control how the search engines see our blogs.

This feature suite includes the ability to redirect one URL in our blog to another URL in our blog. The "Custom Redirects" feature is easy to use - but like many Blogger features, not immediately so.

Neither its possibilities, nor its limitations, are obvious to everybody.

A Custom Redirect starts with the dashboard wizard, at Settings - Search preferences.


Click "New redirect", to start, if you have redirects already.


Add From and To values, as noted.


Remember to select "Permanent".

1. Go to Settings - Search preferences - Custom Redirects, and click on Edit.
2. If you have existing redirects, click on "New redirect".
3. Enter the correct "From" and "To" values.
4. Select "Permanent".
5. Click on "Save".
6. Click on "Save changes".

You can redirect any URL in the blog - to any other URL in that same blog.

The possibilities are almost endless, when you reference any valid URL in a given blog.

Thanks to the syntax of the "From" and "To" values in the wizard, Custom Redirects will only redirect within the blog itself, and is thus useless to spammers and others who would like to misuse it. Also, the custom redirects, which do not include the published URL, will work after the blog URL is changed - either BlogSpot to BlogSpot, or custom domain publishing.

The URL of this post:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/01/blogger-magic-redirecting-url-in-your.html

The base URL, stripped:

/2013/01/blogger-magic-redirecting-url-in-your.html

Take any two URLs in your blog, strip the base URL, and add a custom redirect.

Just take any two specific URLs (no masking, or wild cards) within your blog, strip the base URL from each, and enter the results as the "From" and "To" values. Always start "From" and "To" with a "/" (no leading spaces, or non visible control characters!), signifying the root of the URL, follow the above procedure, and you're done.

Click here, for examples of what you can do. Then, use your imagination.

Just remember though to use specific URLs, no masking or "wild card" characters. Also - the actual URL - and what your readers see in the address window - will not change. The magic goes only so far.