How to send old links on a forwarded domain to the right page

Add a redirect for each old link that lives at a different address now. Every link without a redirect follows the domain's default, so you only need rules for the pages that moved.

This is for domains that forward to your site. If you haven't added the domain yet, start here:

Find the redirects

In the customer portal, open the Domain tab, then click Manage next to the domain under Other domains (Finish setup while it's still being set up). Redirects lists every rule for that domain. The last row, Everything else, is what happens to any link not listed above it.

With no redirects, every link goes to the same path on your site. That covers most moves. If your old posts kept their addresses, you may not need a single rule.

Add a redirect

Click Add redirect, then fill in:

When someone visits: the old path, starting with a slash, like /old-interview. Capital letters and trailing slashes don't matter, so /old-interview and /Old-Interview/ are the same rule.
Send them to: a page on your site like /new-interview/, or any full web address.

Then choose which links it covers:

Just this page sends that one address.
This page and everything under it also covers the addresses below it. A rule for /old-blog catches /old-blog/my-post too, and sends it to the destination plus /my-post.

Click Add redirect to save. The new rule usually reaches visitors within a few seconds. Until then the page shows Publishing your change…, and visitors still get the previous rules.

More options in the same dialog holds three things most people never change:

Is this move permanent? Redirects are permanent (301) by default, which tells search engines to update their links. Pick temporary (302) for a sale or a short campaign.
Keep the part after the question mark keeps tracking codes like ?ref=x on the link. It's on by default.
Match a pattern instead takes a regular expression, for old sites with addresses like /2019/05/post-name. Use $1, $2 in the destination for what it captured.

Which rule wins

A link only ever follows one rule. An exact page wins first, then the longest matching This page and everything under it rule, then patterns in the order they're listed. If nothing matches, the link follows Everything else.

So a rule for /old-blog/best-post wins over a rule for /old-blog, whatever order you added them in. Patterns are the only rules you can reorder, with the arrows next to them.

Change what happens to everything else

Click Change on the Everything else row:

The same page on the main site sends /about to /about on your site.
Always on one page sends every unmatched link to one page you choose, like an archive page.

Pick the second when the old domain's addresses mean nothing on your current site. Otherwise visitors land on a page that doesn't exist.

Moving a whole site

Two tools under More save typing out a long list:

Moving from an old site? finds the old site's pages and suggests a redirect for each one.
Import redirects takes a CSV, YAML or JSON file. You review every rule before anything changes.

More also downloads your redirects as CSV, YAML or JSON, which is handy as a backup before a big import.

Redirects you already have in Ghost

They keep working. With The same page on the main site, a visitor first lands on the same address on your site, and the redirects you uploaded to Ghost take it from there. So if Ghost already sends /old-interview/ to /new-interview/, you don't need the same rule here, though adding it saves the visitor one extra hop.

Check a link

Under Test a link, paste any address on the domain and click Test link. It shows where the link goes and which rule sent it there, and the matching row lights up in the list. Nothing is changed.

To see what visitors get right now, click Check live. It asks the live domain, which shows whether your latest change has reached visitors yet.

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