Domain transfer with TYPO3: Avoid dead links

A well thought-out redirect concept is mandatory every time the domain and content structure are changed. This is important so that existing links pointing to the website from outside do not come to nothing due to the new domain and possibly also the new page structure.

Dead links annoy users and search engines

If you don't pay attention to a few things when moving to a new domain, you will generate a number of so-called "dead links", as the old links to the website are no longer accessible. Dead links not only annoy real users on the web who, for example, end up on a 404 page via links in forums or news articles, but also search engines such as Google. Every page (unless you actively prevent this) is crawled by Google and included in its index in order to be able to display the content pages of the website as suitable search results for certain keywords. If Google displays a 404 page the next time it crawls the known URLs, this can have negative consequences for your ranking. Your domain transfer should therefore be well planned!

Create a redirect concept

It is advisable to use traffic analysis tools such as Sistrix or Google Analytics as a basis for the redirect concept. These tools can be used to list all pages that have been accessed externally in a certain period of time. This includes

Direct links from external sources (e.g. links in forums, blogs, etc.)
Entries via search engines (such as Google and Bing)
Direct entries (e.g. if someone has bookmarked your site)

(!) If you have password-protected areas on your website, tracking systems such as Google will not provide you with a useful list. In this case, it is necessary to list the links manually.

Depending on the website project and its size, it is advisable to make a few restrictions here:

Limit the time period to the last 1-2 years
Only include URLs that have had a relevant number of hits during this period

As a result, you will have a list of URL paths for which you need to consider where their content is now located on your new page. If content has not just been moved, but merged or deleted, a little more work is required here. The table will then look something like this (the Scenario column is for explanatory purposes only):

Technical solutions for setting up redirects

Redirects can be implemented in various ways. Which one is used always depends on the respective use case.

Storing redirects in the web server

In principle, redirects can be configured directly in the web server configuration. Each web server offers a specific syntax for redirecting old URLs to new destinations. The redirection thus takes effect very early in the request process and saves resources. However, changing the redirects always requires an adjustment to the configuration and a corresponding deployment. This means that editors cannot usually simply adapt this type of redirection themselves.

TYPO3 module redirects

For our customer, Mitteldeutsche Flughäfen AG, we opted for a different approach. The requirement here was to consolidate a total of 4 websites into one new website, mdf-ag.com. The four historically grown sites had an incredibly large number of URLs. In addition, at the time of the launch, not all content had been transferred from other smaller sites. A dynamic solution was therefore required that would also enable editors to easily maintain redirects themselves at any time without the need for deployment.

We used the integrated TYPO3 Redirects module for this purpose. The initial list of redirects that we received from the customer was converted into MYSQL statements and then imported directly into the corresponding TYPO3 redirect table. This eliminated the initial manual effort of having to enter all redirects by hand. Minor errors that only became apparent after going live could be quickly rectified by using TYPO3 redirects - without any extra deployment. The customer was also able to easily add missing redirects themselves.
You can find out exactly how the TYPO3 Redirects module, which has been part of the core since TYPO3 v9, works in the article The TYPO3 Redirects module: Technical documentation with source code.

TYPO3 redirects are also practical for many redirects

The concerns that this approach could lead to performance losses have not been confirmed. In theory, it is better to maintain particularly large numbers of redirects directly in the web server and not as redirects with regular expressions, which quickly lead to performance losses in PHP. In practice, however, we have not recognised any problems with the current 1,200 redirects. The TYPO3 Redirects module is therefore able to handle large numbers of redirects without any problems.

Tip: Report domain transfer to Google Webmaster Tools

In addition to setting up the redirects in TYPO3 or on the web server, you should also report your move in Google Webmaster Tools.