How to Add a Rewrite Rule for Only One Page?

Question

I would like to add a rewrite for only certain pages (not all pages) that would insert a base slug into the permalink. This is sort of a unique situation where we know all the page names beforehand and they will not change.

For example:

sitename.com/pagetitle

to

sitename.com/service/pagetitle

I am trying to use "add_rewrite_rule", but not having much luck. Below is one of my iterations and I have had many. Any guidance would be appreciated.

I understand that there is a plugin that allows you to totally change your permalinks of your post and pages to whatever you want, but was hoping I could do it programmatically myself.

add_action( 'init', 'page_change' );
function page_change()
{
    add_rewrite_rule(
        '^pagenamehere/?',
        'index.php?post_type=service',
        'top' );
}

Updated code below:

function new_rewrite_rule()
{
    add_rewrite_rule('^services/statictitle$', 'index.php?pagename=oldname', 'top');
}
add_action('init', 'new_rewrite_rule');

So this code allows the link to be accessible at 'services/statictitle.' However, the old link is still accessible as well. So I am not sure I am going about this in the correct way.....Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Update

Here is an alternative way that I think might be more suitable. Although, this targets all pages. Would there be a way to just target the pagename or id?

function custom_page_rules() {
  global $wp_rewrite;
  $wp_rewrite->page_structure = $wp_rewrite->root . 'services/%pagename%'; 
}

Answer 1

Asumption: You use Apache as your web server.

If you already know the page slugs and they won't change, just add them to your .htaccess file. It'll be much faster and less complicated.

Paste the following Redirect lines at the top of your .htaccess file.

Redirect 301 /pagetitle/ /service/pagetitle/
Redirect 301 /pagetitle2/ /another-dir/pagetitle2/


# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
....

Answer 2

Please have a look on the code below:

add_rewrite_rule( 'services/([^/]*)/?','index.php?post_type='.$post_type.'&name=$matches[1]','top');

For better understanding of rewrite API please check the WP_REWRITE_API and Building Customized URLs in WordPress

Waiting for your feedback!

Hope it will work for you!

Answer 3

This approach might be a little more flexible.

$basePageRewrite->add_rule( 'service', 'page-title' );

At the end of the class definition you should be able to add a base and page. The URL rewrites will be constructed dynamically for the rules you add. If a page is called directly is will be redirected to the $base/$pageTitle.

<?php

if ( ! class_exists( 'BasePageRewrite' ) ):

    class BasePageRewrite {

        const ENDPOINT_QUERY_PARAM_REDIRECT = '____base_page_rewrite__redirect';

        private static $_hash_map = array ();

        /**
         * BasePageRewrite constructor.
         */
        public function __construct() {
            add_filter( 'query_vars', array ( $this, 'add_query_vars' ), 0 );
            add_action( 'parse_request', array ( $this, 'sniff_requests' ), 0 );
            add_action( 'init', array ( $this, 'add_endpoint' ), 0 );
        }

        /**
         * Add rewrite rules here.
         *
         * @param string $base Base of URL
         * @param string $page Slug of page
         */
        public function add_rule( $base, $page ) {
            if ( ! array_key_exists( $base, static::$_hash_map ) ) {
                static::$_hash_map[ $base ] = array ();
            }

            if ( ! array_key_exists( $page, static::$_hash_map[ $base ] ) ) {
                static::$_hash_map[ $base ][ $page ] = 'name';
            }
        }

        /**
         * Add our custom query arg to check in `parse_request`.
         *
         * @param $vars
         *
         * @return array
         */
        public function add_query_vars( $vars ) {
            $vars[] = static::ENDPOINT_QUERY_PARAM_REDIRECT;

            return $vars;
        }

        /**
         * Add rewrite rules.
         *
         *      page --> base/page
         *
         *      base/page === page
         *
         * Note:
         *
         *      `flush_rewrite_rules()` is only added for testing.
         */
        public function add_endpoint() {

            foreach ( static::$_hash_map as $base => $pages ) {

                foreach ( $pages as $pageName => $param ) {

                    // page --> service/page

                    add_rewrite_rule( "^$pageName/", 'index.php?' . static::ENDPOINT_QUERY_PARAM_REDIRECT . "=/$base/$pageName/", 'top' );

                    // service/page === page

                    add_rewrite_rule( "^$base/$pageName/", "index.php?$param=$pageName", 'top' );
                }
            }

            //////////////////////////////////
            flush_rewrite_rules( true );  //// <---------- REMOVE THIS WHEN DONE TESTING
            //////////////////////////////////
        }

        /**
         * Redirect regular page to base/page,
         *
         * @param $wp_query
         */
        public function sniff_requests( $wp_query ) {

            global $wp;

            if ( isset( $wp->query_vars[ static::ENDPOINT_QUERY_PARAM_REDIRECT ] ) ) {

                // page --> service/page

                $redirect = $wp->query_vars[ static::ENDPOINT_QUERY_PARAM_REDIRECT ];
                $new_url  = site_url( $redirect );
                wp_redirect( $new_url, 301 );
                die();
            }
        }
    }

    // Create the class
    $basePageRewrite = new BasePageRewrite();

    // Add individual rules
    $basePageRewrite->add_rule( 'service', 'page-title' );
    $basePageRewrite->add_rule( 'another-service', 'another-page-title' );

endif; // BasePageRewrite

Answer 4

The other part that you need to do here, it is to change the permalink of the page with the page_link filter or the_permalink filter.

here is a mirror question to your own - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27432586/wordpress-page-link-filter

This will do the redirects because wordpress redirects to the canonical address when the url being accessed is different then the canonical one, and the canonical url for posts and pages is their permalink. As an added bonus you get everything else pointing to the right URL as well with no need of redirection at all.

Answer 5

I know you specifically asked for rewrite rules, but what about redirection? You can achieve the same end result and same user experience. You can change the hierarchy of your pages if you want so that

sitename.com/service/pagetitle

is available and

sitename.com/pagetitle

is something that gets redirected to the first address.

This skips your .htaccess altogether for simplicity. It looks like you actually want to learn how to do this as a rewrite rule, which is cool, but if you decide that it is being difficult and you just want a solution that works whether you learn this or not then there are a few different redirection plugins that can handle this for you. My personal favorite is titled "Redirection" and it can handle regex (with a little practice) and it also counts the number of times a redirect rule is used so that you can monitor if you even need to keep it in place.

Lastly, I mentioned in the beginning that you can change your page hierarchy to reflect what you want your URLs to look like and you should probably do this either way if you haven't already. If not then you might find yourself with an infinite redirect situation. (which is also something to keep in mind if you go the redirect plugin route as well as I've seen this happen easily with users who have a lot of redirects and they make a new one that conflicts with one that already exists.)

TLDR: outside the box answer. there are one or more plugins that can achieve this function without actually doing a rewrite.

Answer 6

I've encountered a very similar situation to what seems to be your expectations.

We have a parent page "Our Services" (domain.com/services/) ...

We also have several child pages representing each service provided under the parent page "Our Services". For example: "Web Design" (domain.com/services/web-design/)

Now, we also have a "Portfolio". Instead of dedicating an entire top level section on the website for the portfolio, we decided that we wanted it underneath the main "services" section (domain.com/services/).

So for example, the main section of our portfolio was to be located here: domain.com/services/portfolio/

The portfolio is it's own custom post type, containing individual portfolio items.

So the URL to a specific portfolio item looked like this: domain.com/services/portfolio/sample-portfolio-item/.

When you register your custom post type, there's a configurable parameter for rewrite['slug']. This is where you would specify $args['rewrite']['slug'] = 'services/portfolio';

Of course, anytime you make changes to URL rewrite rules, you need to flush the rewrite rules. Programmatically you would use flush_rewrite_rules(); optionally for quick testing you could always just navigate to Dashboard -> Settings -> Permalinks since this automatically flushes the rewrite rules for you, simply just by visiting that admin page.

Hope you (or someone) finds the information in my answer useful and relevant.