Create and Manage Docs Redirects

A redirect is a way to send both visitors and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested. This might be another URL in your Docs site, or another address on the web.

Redirect settings are available to the Account Owner, Administrators, and Users with custom permission to manage Docs settings only. See User Roles and Permissions for more on permissions. 

Use Cases

There are multiple cases where you might want to use a redirect but here are just some examples you may find helpful.

Add a link to the top navigation

Using our own Docs site as example, you'll find the link to Status in the top navigation redirects you to our status page which we host on another site.

You can set this up by creating a Docs Collection (called Status in this example). Then set up a redirect from the Collection page URL to point to the external site URL.

Replace an article

You might want to combine two articles with a similar focus into one, or you might want to replace an article with another one. Use a redirect from the old article URL that was previously shared with your customers to the new one. This will ensure your visitors can still access your new or combined article from the old URL.

Move from another help desk

You're moving from another help desk, and you want to make sure that old, lingering articles correctly redirect to your Help Scout Docs site. This method requires that you have an active CNAME that points to your Help Scout Docs site using the same domain that you did with your previous provider.

For example, if you used help.yourdomain.com with them previously, you’ll want to also use help.yourdomain.com with Help Scout — this will allow you to create redirects for the links from your previous provider. 

Use articles to lead to another site

For example, if your developer or API documentation is usually hosted on a different site but your visitors are likely to search for this on your Docs site, you can create an article in your Docs site labelled Developer Documentation and redirect that article URL to your developer site.

Create Redirects

1

Head to Manage > Docs and click on the Docs site for which you want to create a redirect.

2

Click Redirects in the left side navigation menu. Click New Docs Redirect if this is the first one; the button will be New Redirect if you've already got at least one other redirect set up.

3

Add the URL to the original article in the Original URL field. Then add the URL you want your customers to land on in the Redirects To field. Click on Save.