Help with widgets.com/red-widgets/ redirecting to widgets.com/red-widgets-sky/

[Sutra]

I recently published two different articles on my site. The articles are related, thus named similar though not the same. The urls are:

• widgets.com/red-widgets/
• widgets.com/red-widgets-sky/

The problem is that when you put widgets.com/red-widgets/ into the address bar (or clicking the link), it automatically redirects to widgets.com/red-widgets-sky/. I checked to make sure there wasn't any manual redirect settings within the article and site. I've cleared the cache on both pages, and tried on different browsers, plus also incognito. Also had my VA check and they get the redirect too.

Note: About 6 months ago, I noticed this same type of redirect issue with a few other pages on the site, immediately after getting a customized theme done for the site. I thought it had been resolved since then, but obviously not because it's happening on two new pages mentioned above. I don't know if the theme development had anything to do with it or if it just coincidence that I first noticed this around that time.

1. Is this issue possibly due to the development of the custom theme?
2. If not due to the custom theme, what do I need to do to fix this?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Are you talking about Wordpress here?

The Wordpress database keeps track of past slugs and redirects them to the newest URL of the page using a 301 redirect. Could it be that at one point in time you used /red-widgets-sky/ for the /red-widgets/ page before you published a new post at that "sky" URL?

If you can't find it in the .htaccess file or equivalent, and it's not in any plugin, then all I can think is it's hidden in the database. The only other possible answer is you have some redirect at the cPanel (or equivalent) level. I don't think registrars allow that level of granularity for redirects.

I'd take note of both posts' ID numbers, then look in the database at the wp_postmeta table. There should be something like _wp_old_slug in the meta_key column. If you can find the /red-widgets/ ID in there, you'll probably find the /red-widgets-sky/ ID in the same row as an old slug ID.

I would think Wordpress has checks to make sure the old slug isn't being used now, though.

Anyways, I'd start my investigation there and see what it turns up. Should be a 5 minute ordeal to either eliminate this possibility or find that it's the culprit.

If it is the culprit, I think you should simply be able to delete the row (through PHPMyAdmin if you need a visual dashboard). Take a backup of the database first, as always.

EDIT: I also meant to mention that Wordpress tries to correct typos by using 301 redirects as well. It will redirect you to the closest URL if it's fairly similar. Your situation fits the bill, but again, I'm sure they have checks to see if the slug exists first.

 

[Sutra]

Wonderful, thank you. That helped resolve it. Turns out one of our previous VA's had published an article with that url, then saved it again as a draft, then edited the url, then published with a different url. Argh. All good now though.