Allow Redirect of Urls

Planned

61 Comments

  • Official comment
    Ryan McGrew
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hey All, 

    I wanted chime in as we start to approach the end of Q1. The team is hard at work on this, it's small but mighty group. We've got the first internal milestones in place and are proceeding toward our customer facing milestone, we expect this to happen in the first half of Q2 2023. I know things are slipping quarter and I apologize, we're making headway as quickly as we can and we know how important this. More to come as we approach our first customer facing release.

    Thanks!

  • Jachin Scott

    We also need this functionality.

    7
  • Jeff Blanding

    i was looking to do the same thing and came across this

    https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217958367-Redirecting-traffic-from-deleted-Help-Center-articles

    3
  • Robert Orzanna (Sheetgo)

    How about this implementation with a new text box on the right side?

    15
  • Brooke

    Hey! 

    I originally posted two messages in this thread here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217958367 and was told to post here instead. Just reposting what I originally wrote on the page in the link for clarity's sake: 

     

    "Wondering for an update on this! It's 2018, and we're hitting a lot of roadblocks where deleted links are becoming more costly for our product. 

    Would love to see a solution to set up redirect links for deleted articles - that doesn't involve Javascript. It would be awesome to specify a new redirect link when you delete/unpublish an article like others have been saying!" 

    6
  • Sarah Boyd

    We also need this functionality for many reasons (reporting, tracking, SEO, etc...). We follow the KCS methodology and as part of the Evolve loop, we need the ability to redirect articles at any given time. With over 2,000 articles (and counting), using JS to redirect articles will quickly become time consuming and unmanageable. Additionally, we need 30X directs in order for search engines to properly redirect viewers as well. 

    6
  • Stephen Belleau
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary

    +1, we have the same use case regarding KCS that Sboyd mentioned. I'd also like to highlight the numerous times I've encountered broken links on Zendesk's own help center. This feature would certainly benefit everyone.

    5
  • David da Silva Rosa

    I would desperately need this functionality in ZD. The JS fix published in your documentation is not an appropriate solution.

    3
  • Dan Ross
    Community Moderator

    +1 for being able to have a 30x redirect. The solution suggested by Robert above would be a great location to implement this feature! 

     

     

    4
  • David Atwood

    +1. We need for global branding to allow two top level domains to point to ZenDesk

    3
  • Brendan O'Driscoll

    I'd like to add my name to the list of requests for redirect functionality.

    We recently migrated to Zendesk and, having accepted that links would break as a result, put in the work to update those across our digital assets. This is not something that we could afford to do twice.

    We also implemented the solution indicated here to a small extent: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217958367-Redirecting-traffic-from-deleted-Help-Center-articles (it's a temporary fix for some URLs but is certainly not scalable). What happens when the URL strings in the .JS get to 100+ or more? I image the pressure that might put on page loads.

    Going forward, there's a more pressing matter: we need the ability to redirect users to new updated articles that have replaced older content. These articles are referenced everywhere (in our blogs, nurture campaigns, and even our product's code!). Our customers also bookmark a lot of this same material for reference in internal wikis, etc.

    Article versioning (while great) does not address the need to replace a set of documents wholesale. We need the ability to manage links more broadly.

     

    4
  • Scott Havard

    I also need this functionality.

    Ideally I would use 30x redirection, but I ended up needing to utilize a JS script as people have mentioned above. Many people have shared great solutions, so I would like to share mine as well:

    https://github.com/scotthavard92/Zendesk-Help-Center-Redirection

    This is far from the ideal, 30x redirect solution though. Feel free to reach out with questions.

    2
  • Annie

    We have implemented JS redirects, but it appears that these do not function properly when clicked from within the Zendesk Web Widget.  Can anyone else using JS report on this?

    Scenario: We imported all articles from another system.  Our articles include links to other articles, based on the old system.  Redirects function properly when that link is accessed via the web browser.  If an article is pulled up via the Web Widget, and a link clicked from within, a new browser tab opens and the redirect fails.

    0
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hey Annie, you may want to re-post your question in the Guide Q&A topic for more visibility. 

    1
  • Sarah Nicholaev

    We also need this functionality. 

    4
  • Marco Esposito

    Same here, we also need it, thanks!

    3
  • Marine de DualSun

    We also need this functionality !

    3
  • Jean-michel WEISS

    +1, even in wordpress, this functionality exists

    3
  • Brooke

     

    Seeing as how @... asked us to post in the Guide Q&A topic, I've done it for all of us, using Patrick's original post above. 

    Please feel free to go to the thread here and upvote/comment for more visibility folks!

    1
  • Simon Celen

    Hi all,

    As mentioned by somebody else, 30x redirects are not possible. Javascript redirects are possible and don't need to involve editing the scripts.js file.

    What I have implemented is a piece of Javascript that checks if the article content consists of just a single link. If so, redirect to it. That way you can replace the old article's content with f.e. a "this article has moved" message. Variant approaches to this are possible too. 

    Let me know if anyone needs help developing something like this.

     

    Thanks

    1
  • Bruce Michelsen

    Simon, I'm interested in your redirect Javascript for articles with only a link.

    0
  • Simon Celen

    Hi Bruce,

    Assuming a stock Copenhagen theme, you can add the following to the top of your scripts.js file:

    jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
    $('div.article-body').each(function() {
    if ($(this).children().length == 1) {
    var p = $(this).children('p');
    if (p.length == 1 && p.children('a').length == 1) {
    location.href = p.children('a').attr('href');
    }
    }
    });
    });

    It checks that there is only one line in the article containing a single link. If that's the case, the user is redirected to it. 

    If you replace the old article's content with f.e. "this article has moved", the user is redirected without you having to edit the scripts.js file again.

    Hope that helps!

    1
  • Bruce Michelsen

    Thanks, Simon.

    0
  • Alejandro Colon

    @...

    Can we get a Zendesk 2020 response?

    5
  • Floris Bijker

    @... As Alejandro asked, can we get a status update on this?

    This request has been here since 2013. That's about a 120 years in tech. It's quite surprising that such a fundamental feature isn't there yet.

    I have broken links all over the place in our Help Center and I can do nothing about them. Knowledge bases change over time, so you're bound to get links that are broken. It would be great to know if this is close to implementation.

    7
  • McLindsay

    I need this functionality for my org as well. Any progress in the last 7 years?

    4
  • Brooke

    Zendesk, 

    What's the update on this? I've posted here asking for a solution that didn't involve JS workarounds, and so have many other folks here. I was redirected to post on this product feedback community post and it's been zero silence since, nearly three years later.

    It's 2020, and many of us are still dealing with having to decommission older articles with no elegant way of redirecting them to an active article, and this is compounded further with broken links that we have no way to track.

    Many of your other competitors already provide this functionality (HelpScout). When is Zendesk adding this functionality?

     

    3
  • Patrick Morgan

    Adding another +1 here.

    It would additionally be great to have a modal/interstitial appear when archiving and deleting articles that prompts users to add an optional redirect URL (if the user hasn't already chosen one for the article).

    4
  • Damien Messé

    Same for us. We are shutting down a Zendesk Help Center to redirect to another one and there is no SEO tool to do a proper redirection...

    Any solution ?

    2
  • Billy Watts

    Redirection is a critical need for our zendesk help center.

    As URLs change, we need them to be redirected to maintain our search engine link value and the user experience when following old links on external sites. 

    URL changes are unavoidable. Please provide the ability to redirect a URL using a search-engine-friendly 301 redirect (not javascript).

    9

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