What is ‘Routing’?

Routing is the technical term for ‘redirecting’ pages or items in the navigation menu. If you want to redirect a page link (nav menu item) to another page or to an external site, you redirect (Route) it to the new location.

Why use routing?

Scenario 1:  You may have identical pages on the site that appear in multiple locations. For example, you may have multiple ‘Colours’ pages that are duplicated across separate sub-branded guidelines information (e.g. Masterbrand > Colours, Sub-brand > Colours, Co-brand > Colours, etc). Instead of managing duplicates of the page (and thus needing to edit multiple pages when making content edits), you simply redirect (route) the duplicate pages to the ‘master’ colours page. If changes need to be made to the Colours pages, then you only need to make changes to the master page (and not all the duplicates).

Scenario 2:  You may want to create links in the navigation menu that link directly to other pages or sections across the site, or to create a set of anchors in the nav menu that link to anchored content on a specific page. You can use this method to create a ‘page contents’ list in the navigation.

Scenario 3:  You may want to link content to an external page but prefer to have the link as a navigation menu item rather than a hyperlink embedded in content pages. Though it’s easy (within page content) to add hyperlinks that link to external pages, you will need to use a redirect to have the link appear as a menu item.

There are other reasons for routing pages and they are described below.

Essentially, there are two key ways in which to redirect (route) pages in Brand Toolbox:

1. The ‘Routing’ tab
2. The ‘Redirect External’ page type
    

In most cases, you use the ‘Routing’ tab to redirect existing page nodes to other pages across the site. This is generally the preferred method if a page already exists. For example, if you have an existing page and then want to redirect it to another page, instead of deleting this page (and potentially breaking any links to the deleted page), simply redirect/re-route the existing page using the ‘Routing’ tab properties.

However, if you need to create a nav menu item redirect to an external site or to an anchor within a page, the ‘Redirect External’ page type must be used.

If you know in advance that you will be creating a redirect (and are sure you’ll never want to add content on the page node that you’re redirecting from), then add/create a ‘Redirect External’ page node and simply redirect it to whatever page you wish.

The ‘Routing’ tab within a standard guidelines page includes the following editable properties:

• Redirect
• Internal Redirect Id
• Url Name
• Url Alias
   

Backoffice location: To find the properties on a standard guidelines page, go to:

Content [section] > Home > *chosen guidelines page* [node] > Routing [tab]
 

Property: Redirect

Lets you create a 302 page redirect to an internal page of the site. This means that when a user navigates to this node, they will be redirected to the page selected here (and the page/Url name selected here will display in the browser).

For most redirects to internal site pages, it’s usually best to use this ‘Redirect’ property, as the Url is not fixed. This means that if, in future, the page that you’re redirecting to changes name or location across the site, the redirect will still link to the page.

Note: If wanting to redirect to an external site or to an anchor within a page, the ‘Redirect to Url’ property within the ‘Redirect External’ page type should be used.
 

Property: Internal Redirect Id

This works like the ‘Redirect’ property above except for the following difference:

Loads the selected page’s content transparently without performing a URL redirection. This essentially performs a rewrite and retains the original Url in the browser. It masks (hides) the page Url selected here.
 

Property: Url Name

This property lets you provide a different URL name to what is created by default from the name of the node.

If you enter a value for this property and save/publish the content node, you will see in the ‘Info’ tab that its main URL is updated with a new path suffix.
 

Property: Url Alias

This property lets you provide a comma separated list of alternate full URL paths for the node.

For example, if your URL was ‘/some-page/content-node’, by adding an Url Alias of ‘flowers’, a user can navigate to the node by going to ‘~/flowers’. The URL alias remains in the browser address bar as a ‘mask’ over the real URL.

You can also specify paths like:

• flowers/roses/red
• flowers#anchor

Guidance on ‘Creating a new redirect page (node) item’ is provided below.
 

The following redirect properties appear on the ‘Redirect External’ page type:

Property: Redirect To Url

Allows you to include a fixed redirect to an external site (URL/path) or to an anchor within a page. When a user navigates to this node, they will be redirected to the URL/path added here.

For external URLs:  Add the full address. For example: http:// or https://domainname.com. Note that “www.” before the URL is not required.

For internal redirects:  Start the path with a slash and do not add the domain name. For example, only enter: /section-name/page-name

Note that for internal redirects, it’s best to use the ‘Redirect’ property shown below. However, you will need to use this ‘Redirect To Url’ property if adding an anchor or search query to the end of the URL.

Whether including an external url or internal redirect, anchors and query strings may be used. For example:

• /page-name#anchor
• /page-name?q=value
   

Property: Redirect

Lets you create a 302 page redirect to an internal page of the site. This means that when a user navigates to this node, they will be redirected to the page selected here (and the page/Url name selected here will display in the browser).

For most redirects to internal site pages, it’s usually best to use this ‘Redirect’ property, as the Url is not fixed. This means that if, in future, the page that you’re redirecting to changes name or location across the site, the redirect will still link to the page.

Note: If wanting to redirect to an external site, the ‘Redirect to Url’ property should be used.
 

Property: Internal Redirect Id

This works like the ‘Redirect’ property above except for the following difference:

Loads the selected page’s content transparently without performing a URL redirection. This essentially performs a rewrite and retains the original Url in the browser. It masks (hides) the page Url selected here.
 

Property: Url Name

This property lets you provide a different URL name to what is created by default from the name of the node.

If you enter a value for this property and save/publish the content node, you will see in the ‘Info’ tab that its main URL is updated with a new path suffix.
 

Property: Url Alias

This property lets you provide a comma separated list of alternate full URL paths for the node.

For example, if your URL was ‘/some-page/content-node’, by adding an Url Alias of ‘flowers’, a user can navigate to the node by going to ‘~/flowers’. The URL alias remains in the browser address bar as a ‘mask’ over the real URL.

You can also specify paths like:

• flowers/roses/red
• flowers#anchor
   

Creating a new redirect page (node) item

First choose the section (node) where you want the new navigation menu item to appear.

Hover over the page (node) name, click on the options icon (•••) and select the ‘Redirect External’ page type in the Create menu.

Enter a node name for the new page redirect and utilise one of the routing properties described above.