1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Joomla's redirect component is incredibly helpful if you happen to be 2 00:00:04,001 --> 00:00:05,001 redesigning your Web site; 3 00:00:05,002 --> 00:00:10,002 if you have an existing Web site that you've built in Dreamweaver, or FrontPage, 4 00:00:10,003 --> 00:00:13,003 or maybe you have it in some other content management system, it's in 5 00:00:13,004 --> 00:00:18,004 WordPress, it's in Drupal, and you want to move it out of those systems, and put it into Joomla. 6 00:00:18,005 --> 00:00:23,005 Anytime you move from one system to another, the URLs for your Web site are going to change, 7 00:00:23,006 --> 00:00:27,006 and what that means is, if somebody goes to Google shortly after you launch 8 00:00:27,007 --> 00:00:31,007 your site, and then type in a URL, or they search for a page, Google may pull up 9 00:00:31,008 --> 00:00:33,008 an old page of yours. 10 00:00:33,009 --> 00:00:37,009 And that old page, when they click on the link to visit it, they are going to 11 00:00:37,010 --> 00:00:42,010 come up with a 404 error; that's that page not found kind of error. 12 00:00:42,011 --> 00:00:47,011 This particular Web site we've been working on is a new design, so those 404 13 00:00:47,012 --> 00:00:50,012 errors are less likely to occur from that type of thing, 14 00:00:50,013 --> 00:00:55,013 but it's still possible that somebody might just be trying to type things into 15 00:00:55,014 --> 00:01:01,014 the Web site, and see if they pull up pages, or somebody may mistype a URL, or the 16 00:01:01,015 --> 00:01:04,015 marketing department may come to you and say, hey, we are going to run a 17 00:01:04,016 --> 00:01:08,016 campaign, and we'd like to tie it to this particular short URL that we're going 18 00:01:08,017 --> 00:01:10,017 to run in our marketing materials. 19 00:01:10,018 --> 00:01:14,018 We'd like you to set that up to direct to an existing page on the Web site; 20 00:01:14,019 --> 00:01:16,019 maybe something that has a longer URL. 21 00:01:16,020 --> 00:01:18,020 So, fortunately Joomla 22 00:01:18,021 --> 00:01:21,021 has a way of dealing with this through the redirect component. 23 00:01:21,022 --> 00:01:27,022 So let's say that, for example, I go here on my About page, and I am wondering if 24 00:01:27,023 --> 00:01:34,023 there is a solar page, so I say localhost/index.php/solar, and I hit Return. 25 00:01:34,024 --> 00:01:37,024 What happens is I get this 404 page. 26 00:01:37,025 --> 00:01:43,025 And this is Joomla's 404 page. It indicates that the page cannot be found, and 27 00:01:43,026 --> 00:01:44,026 there may be some reasons for that. 28 00:01:44,027 --> 00:01:49,027 This 404 page allows me to click on this link to go back to the homepage, which 29 00:01:49,028 --> 00:01:53,028 actually looks like a bug inside of Joomla! 30 00:01:53,029 --> 00:01:57,029 When I click on this, I am actually loading this page over and over again, so 31 00:01:57,030 --> 00:02:00,030 that doesn't quite work, but it's a lovely idea to have that link there. 32 00:02:00,031 --> 00:02:05,031 What has happened, though, is that Joomla's redirect component has indeed tracked this down. 33 00:02:05,032 --> 00:02:08,032 So if we go to the back-end of Joomla, 34 00:02:08,033 --> 00:02:13,033 and we go to Components, and we go to the Redirect component, we'll notice that 35 00:02:13,034 --> 00:02:19,034 I've actually got two URLs here that have turned up as 404 errors. 36 00:02:19,035 --> 00:02:24,035 One is a delete me page. I used this earlier in some videos, and when I refresh 37 00:02:24,036 --> 00:02:29,036 the page after I had deleted that page from the back-end of Joomla, I wound up 38 00:02:29,037 --> 00:02:33,037 getting a 404 error. The Redirect component recorded that for me. 39 00:02:33,038 --> 00:02:35,038 Also, this thing that I just typed in, index.php/solar, 40 00:02:35,039 --> 00:02:40,039 I have generated a 404 error for that as well. So Joomla 41 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:44,040 is tracking these for me, and that's very nice of Joomla. 42 00:02:44,041 --> 00:02:47,041 But it's just telling me what pages have not been found. 43 00:02:47,042 --> 00:02:52,042 What I can do, though, is I can say, when somebody types in the solar, just like 44 00:02:52,043 --> 00:02:54,043 that, I'd like to send them to the solar blog. 45 00:02:54,044 --> 00:02:58,044 So something I can do is click on this particular link. 46 00:02:58,045 --> 00:03:04,045 So what happens is when it says the source URL is this, what I just typed in in 47 00:03:04,046 --> 00:03:07,046 my Web browser, what is the destination URL? 48 00:03:07,047 --> 00:03:12,047 Well, my destination URL is going to be the solar blog. 49 00:03:12,048 --> 00:03:17,048 So I am just going to copy this URL from here, Ctrl+C or Command+C to copy that, 50 00:03:17,049 --> 00:03:19,049 and Ctrl+V or Command+V to paste that in. 51 00:03:19,050 --> 00:03:24,050 It could be that somebody wanted this URL solar on the end, maybe that was a 52 00:03:24,051 --> 00:03:32,051 marketing campaign, so we can say New marketing brochure for solar panels. 53 00:03:32,052 --> 00:03:36,052 The comment isn't required, but it's nice to remember why it was that you created 54 00:03:36,053 --> 00:03:38,053 this URL in the first place. 55 00:03:38,054 --> 00:03:42,054 And then, of course, the Status of this particular redirect is either Disabled, or 56 00:03:42,055 --> 00:03:48,055 it's Enabled, Archived, or Trashed, so I am going to say Enable it, and then I am 57 00:03:48,056 --> 00:03:49,056 going to say Save & Close. 58 00:03:49,057 --> 00:03:53,057 So now what will happen is, the next time somebody happens to go to this 59 00:03:53,058 --> 00:04:01,058 solar page, local host/index.php/solar, they will be automatically redirected 60 00:04:01,059 --> 00:04:03,059 to the solar blog page. 61 00:04:03,060 --> 00:04:09,060 So I can create these redirect pages proactively. In other words, marketing comes 62 00:04:09,061 --> 00:04:13,061 to me and says, make this redirect and point it to this page on the Web site. Or I 63 00:04:13,062 --> 00:04:18,062 can do these reactively, so as people come to my site, and 404 pages are 64 00:04:18,063 --> 00:04:25,063 generated, I can respond to that by directing those links to a page that does 65 00:04:25,064 --> 00:04:27,064 exist on the Web site.