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Create a page URL

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This article covers the basic concepts and procedures for creating a page URL on your site.

The full, or absolute, URL that points to a page on your site consists of distinct parts. For example, the URL https://www.contoso.com/en-us/contactus has the following parts:

  • https://www.contoso.com – The HTTP protocol and the site's domain.
  • /en-us – The site's language path.
  • /contactus – The relative URL for the Contact Us page. A relative URL is also known as a URL slug.

You establish your site's domain and optional language path when you set up the site. You can add more domains and language paths to your site through the online stores page in the site's settings.

The URL slug for a page exists as a standalone entity in the site authoring environment. A page URL consists of two parts: a name that represents the URL slug, and a pointer to a page on either your site or an external site. A page URL can also be configured to act as a redirect to another page on either your site or an external site.

Create a page URL

There are two ways to create page URLs:

  • Automatically, when you create a page
  • Manually, from the URLs page

Create a page URL when you create a page

If you provide a name in the URL field when you create a new page, a page URL that points to that page is automatically created on the URLs page. After you publish the URL and the page that it points to, site users (your customers) can access the page that is associated with the URL.

Note

If you publish a URL without publishing the page that it points to, site users receive a 404 error when they try to access the page. If you publish a page without publishing the URL that points to it, the page can't be accessed by using a URL.

Manually create a page URL

When you create new pages, you aren't required to specify a page URL. If you leave the URL field blank, the page is created in an unlinked state. In this case, customers won't be able to access the page, even if it's published. To make the page accessible, you must manually create the URL and link it to the page.

To manually create the page URL for a page, follow these steps.

  1. On the URLs page, select New.
  2. Select the site page to associate with the URL.
  3. Enter the URL slug, and then select OK.

At this point, the URL is in a draft state. It must be published before site users can access the associated page.

Update a page URL

To update the target page of a page URL, follow these steps.

  1. On the URLs page, select the URL to update.
  2. In the property pane on the right, select the ellipsis button (...) next to the target page field.
  3. In the dialog box, select a different page, and then select OK.
  4. Save and publish the URL.

Redirect a page URL

Sometimes, you might want your customers to view a different page when they request a specific URL. In these cases, the best and easiest approach is often to change the page that the page URL points to. However, you might have legitimate reasons for using HTTP 301 or 3023 redirects to redirect requests for a URL to a different URL.

To redirect a URL to a different URL, follow these steps.

  1. On the URLs page, select the URL to update.

  2. In the property pane on the right, select Redirect.

  3. Select a destination for the redirect:

    • To point to another page on your site, select Internal URL, select the ellipsis button (...), and then select the URL to redirect to.
    • To point to a page on an external site, select External URL, and then enter the full URL for that page. Be sure to include the protocol. For example, enter https://domain.com/new/page. If the URL already redirects to an internal URL, you must select Clear selection before you can enter an external URL.

  4. Select a redirect type:

    • Permanent redirect (301) – Select this option when you know that your content is moving permanently and won't revert to its previous URL. Search engines will assign the search engine optimization (SEO) value of the redirecting URL to the URL that is being redirected to and update their record to show the new URL.
    • Temporary redirect (302) – Select this option to redirect traffic without updating search engines. This approach is typically used if the content will soon revert to its previous URL.

  5. When you're ready to implement the redirect, save and publish the URL.

Additional resources

Customize site navigation

Add a new site page

Configure your domain name

Add languages to your site