Redirection not working

Archives Blogger To WordPress
#1

Old Blogger url: pmbypm.blogspot.com or pmbypm.blogspot.in
New Blog url: www.pmbypm.com

Hi,

First of all many thanks for writing your plugin and helping us bloggers.

I am facing a peculiar problem. My pages are not being redirected to Wordpress even though they were being redirected earlier.

I think my redirection was working fine when I migrated from Blogger to Wordpress about 3 months ago. I am pretty sure as I tested it at the time of migration. Google Search ranking also was good after migration.

About 4 weeks ago the search ranking dropped drastically. I could not figure out the problem. But about a week ago I noticed on Google Webmasters pages that redirected pages were giving errors. This could explain the drop in search rankings (there was no Google Penalty).

I think, in between, I stopped rtcamp plugin. I think this could be the reason for redirection problem. But I am not sure. I have also reconfigured everything but still redirection is not working.

e.g. plugin “Test Case” says

Clicking this link » http://pmbypm.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-read-pmbok-concluding-remarks.html
Should redirect to » http://www.pmbypm.com/how-to-read-pmbok-concluding-remarks/

But after clicking the page just goes blank.

Please help. I appreciate your kind support.

Best regards,
Praveen.

#2

@pmalik

There could be some possible reasons:

  1. Blogger to WordPress Plugin is deactivated.
  2. blogger.com template changed. and the code generated by our plugin is not there.
  3. Ask your hosting support team, they might have disabled external URL redirection https://rtcamp.com/blogger-to-wordpress/tutorials/solved-blogger-to-wordpress-redirection-issue-with-hostgators-hosting/

Thanks,
–Nitun

#3

Hi Nitun,

Thaks for your speedy response. I have asked my servicee provider for whitelisting. Let us wait for that.

Meanwhile let write down the complete sequence of steps as I remember-

  1. 12 weeks ago - Migrated Blogger to Wordpress. Used the plugin to generate code and copied the code to the Blogger template.
  2. 12 weeks ago - I tested the redirection. It was working fine. At lease for a few pages which I tested.
  3. 7 weeks ago - I changed the wordpress theme but did not deactivate rtcamp plugin.
  4. 4 weeks ago - I was optimizing for speed so I deactivated the plugin for a few hours. I reactivated the plugin and have not deactivated it since then.
  5. 4 weeks ago - It is possible it might have added few more plugins. I am not sure which ones.
  6. 4 weeks ago - I am not sure but I think redirection problem started at this point.
  7. Today - I regenerated the code from rtcamp plugin and copied it again to Blogger template but the problem persisted.
  8. Today - I changed the blogger templete to classic Template, regenerated the code and copied it. Problem is still the same.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Praveen Malik

#4

Thanks for all the steps. I don’t think that is creating problem.
Lets wait for your hosting support team.

#5

Hi Nitun,

I just received response from Hostforweb. I am pasting it below. What could be the problem?

Hello,

I have disabled mod security rules on the server completely to check the redirection, and it still wasn’t working.

Please check with blogspot or plugin vendor about any other possible causes, as we are not able to access remote site where redirection is being made.

Best regards,
Alen R.

#6

That is strange. May be your hosting account has some other security rules.
As per the points given by you, all looks fine to me.

#7

Hi,

Yep. This is very strange. Is it possible that there is some problem with htaccess? Or there is a compatibility issue with theme or some other plugin?

Logically Blogger side code is converting to a url like “http://www.pmbypm.com/?b2w=http://pmbypm.blogspot.in/2013/04/critical-path-pert-and-standard.html” So the problem should be on Wordpress side.

Would it help if I deactivate the plugin, remove it and then install it again?

Thanks.

Regards,
Praveen.

#8
Would it help if I deactivate the plugin, remove it and then install it again?

I don’t think, it will make any changes.

The only thing in my mind, check again with hosting team, they might have some other rewrite security rules.

#9

Hi Nitun,

Here is the response from HostforWeb. I am completely stuck.

Hello,

this is not an issue with mod_security rules as those have been completely disabled for your account on our side, so mod_security is not even being used for it. The issue is with redirects themselves, they are redirecting to a non existing URL’s, and which is a scripting issue, and as such unsupported by us, as we do not provide scripting support I’m afraid.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

#10

If you look into other support thread, you will find few of the people faced such issues, and all their issues get resolved after fixing from their server team.
And, I am sure its not related to plugin.

#11

Hi Nitun,

I am also sure it is not related to plugin. Otherwise it would not have worked in first place. In fact I enjoyed healthy google rankings for about 2 months.

There are 2 approaches I can take:

  1. Hostforweb is asserting that they have opened everything. Can I give them some pointer on where to look or what to look?
  2. Is it possible that there is a problem with htaccess? Or some conflict with other plugin/themes? I can share the htaccess or list of plugins if required.

Thanks again for your kind support.

Regards,
Praveen.

#12

Hello Praveen,

  1. You can give them your old blog post URL which content ?b2w string.
  2. Can’t say, its because of any plugin/theme, you can try it. I don’t think .htaccess has problem otherwise it should not redirect previously.
#13

Hi Nitun,

I was able to resolve the problem over the weekend. It was due to plugin conflict only. I was using Block Bad Queries ( https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-bad-queries/ ) which was creating the problem. I have deactivated it for now. Maybe, you can include a fix for this in your future version of your plugin.

The problem is not fully resolved though. The pages are being redirected but Google is giving some page not found errors (Webmaster Tools).

Thanks for all your help.

Attachment Link(s):

http://rtcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/rtMedia/topics/68785/2014/08/Google-errors1.png

http://rtcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/rtMedia/topics/68785/2014/08/Google-errors2.png

#14

Glad to know that issue has been solved.

regarding Google errors, you may need to change the site address in google webmaster tool and again submit the sitemap.
Hope that will fix soon.

#15