Redirects and 404s

Xagio > 301 & 404 handles redirects and broken links for the site. It works with or without a Xagio account. The screen has three tabs:

301 Redirects: send an old URL to a new one.
404 Monitor: a log of URLs that returned “not found”, with hits, referrers, IP addresses and user agents.
Settings: how logging and automatic redirects behave.

You can also open the redirect list from Xagio > Project Planner > Manage > Manage Redirects.

A 301 redirect sends visitors and search engines from an old URL to a new one, and passes the old page’s ranking signals along.

Add a redirect

Go to Xagio > 301 & 404 and open the 301 Redirects tab.
Select Add New Redirect.
Pick the old page or post from the dropdown, or type the old URL in the /oldurl/ format. Select Continue.
Confirm or edit the old URL, then enter the new URL in the /newurl/ format, or pick a page.
Save. You see “Redirection added.”

Import redirects from a CSV file

Select Upload CSV File.
Prepare a file with two columns and no header: column A is the old URL, column B is the new URL.
```
/oldUrl1,/newurl1
/oldUrl2,/newurl2
```
Drop the file in Upload CSV Here, then confirm “This will add all redirections from your CSV file. Continue?” with Ok.

Edit or remove redirects

Edit this redirect: change the old or new URL.
Trash this redirect: delete one redirect.
Remove Selected: delete the redirects you ticked.
Remove All: delete every redirect.

Automatic redirects

When you change the URL (slug) of a published page or post and update it, Xagio adds a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. Turn this off with Disable Automatic Redirects on the Settings tab.

Review the 404 log

The 404 Monitor logs every request for a URL that does not exist. Use it to find broken links and old URLs that still get visits, then redirect them.

Go to Xagio > 301 & 404 and open the 404 Monitor tab. Each row shows:

Hits: how many times the URL was requested.
404 URL and Last Hit.
IP Addresses, Referers and User Agents.

Redirect a 404

Select Add 301 Redirect on the row.
Enter the URL to send visitors to (/newurl/ format), or pick a page.
Save. You see “Redirect successfully added in 301 redirects list.”

Clean up the log

Trash this log: delete one entry.
Remove Selected: delete the entries you ticked.
Clear Logs: delete every entry.
Export Logs: download the log as a CSV file.

To log fewer entries, use the Settings tab.

Track referrer metrics

Tick log entries that have referrers, then select Track Referers. Xagio fetches link metrics for the referring URLs and domains. The confirmation shows how many Xags it uses (“This action will consume N XAGS”). If the metrics service cannot be reached, you see “Error connecting to API, please try again. You were not charged for this action.”

Settings

Setting	What it does
Disable 404’s Logs	Stops logging 404s.
Log 404’s From Spider Bot	Also logs 404s from search engine crawlers.
Log Only 404’s With Referring URLs	Logs a 404 only when the visitor came from a link.
Disable Automatic Redirects	Stops new redirects when a page or post URL changes.
Global 301 Redirect URL	Sends every 404 to this URL, unless a 301 already covers it. 404s are still logged.
Maximum Log Entries	How many log entries to keep before the oldest are deleted.
URLs to Ignore	URLs or file types not to log, one per line. Wildcards work, for example `/xmlrpc.php` or `.png`.

Select Save Changes after you edit.

Troubleshooting

“Input field cannot be empty. Please select a page/post or enter a URL manually!”: pick a page or type a URL.
“Please select a valid CSV file.”: upload a .csv file.
“404 URL not fetched! Please clear log or add this URL from 301 redirects.”: add the redirect from the 301 Redirects tab instead.
“Please select correct max log limit.”: enter a valid Maximum Log Entries value.
“You do not have enough XAGS to perform this operation!”: add Xags before you use Track Referers.