301 doesn't redirect a page that ends in %20, and others being appended with ?q=

[Brocberry]

I have a product page that ends /product-name**%20** that I'm trying to redirect in this way:

Redirect 301 /products/product-name%20 http://www.site.com/products/product-name

And it doesn't redirect at all. The others, those with %20, are being redirected to a url hybrid of old and new: http://www.site.com/products/product-name**?q=old-url**

I'm using Drupal CMS, and it may be creating rules that counter my entries.

[StreamlineMetrics]

Try putting it in quotes -

Redirect 301 "/products/product-name%20" http://www.site.com/products/product-name

Let me know if that doesn't work...

[Brocberry]

Thanks for the reply. I tried it but it didn't work, but I given incorrect info in the question, which is now corrected. I had said other 301 were working fine when in fact they weren't. Those without %20 are redirecting to an odd hybrid of urls.

After some searching, I think this has something to do with the drupal CMS and the rules it creates in htaccess.

[StreamlineMetrics]

Hmmm... I was going to also suggest trying replacing the %20 with an actual space -

Redirect 301 "/products/product-name " http://www.site.com/products/product-name

Now that you say none of the redirects are working as expected, did you try adding the 301 redirects above the Drupal rules in your .htaccess file? Can you paste the contents of your .htaccess?

[Brocberry]

I think this is the culprit:

Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

At the moment,
Redirect 301 /old-page http://www.site.com/new-page

creates
www.site.com/new-page?q=old-page

I have tried the 301s both before the CMS rule and after it, without success.

[Brocberry]

I've managed to 301 everything except that pesky %20 url, perhaps because of the %20 or perhaps because that's also the only one in a folder.

Here's what's worked for simple urls such as www.site.com/old-page

RewriteRule ^old-page$ http://www.site.com/new-page  [R=301,L]

But the same format for the %20 hasn't worked:

RewriteRule ^/products/product-name%20$ http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

[PeterAttia]

I know this is an old thread, but I actually spotted this issue while trying to fix it myself. I was able to fix it by using quotes and a literal space. So for example, instead of

RewriteRule ^/products/product%20name$ http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

use

RewriteRule "^/products/product name$" http://www.site.com/products/new-url [R=301,L]

Hope that helps.