Redirect 404 to another domain with apache?

Question

Hey guys, have a question regarding apache. I have a site that's been re-engineered, but I want to capture all the 'old' links that people may have bookmarked or come from search engines to the old site which is under a new domain name. How do I get apache to redirect only 404 not found to the old site?

TIA,

J

Answer 1

You could set your 404 document to a CGI that redirects the user.

 ErrorDocument 404 /cgi-bin/redirect-to-other.cgi

Answer 2

Another option, similar to that proposed by @seth is to add the handler so it points to a static html page which you can use to explain to the user what happen, and present them with options.

You can include a meta redirect so that if they don't do anything after a few seconds they're automatically redirected.

Which option will work best is really up to you do decide.

Answer 3

Your old domain should capture all responses and return a '301 moved permanently' response with the new domain in the 'Location' field of the header. A 404 means 'not found' and in this case it's not strictly true.

Answer 4

You should first decide what status code you want to send. Sending both a 404 status code and a redirect is not possible.

But seth did already mention the right method, the ErrorDocument directive:

# local path
ErrorDocument 404 /local/path/to/error/document
# external URI
ErrorDocument 404 http://uri.example/to/error/document

If you use a local path, the 404 status code is sent. If you use an absolute URI, a 302 status code (temporary redirect) is sent.

And if you want to send a 301 redirect:

Redirect 301 / http://new.example.com/