I just got an email from an innkeeper with a question I have received several times before.
In an effort to send emails to guests to invite them to write reviews, the long and ugly link from TripAdvisor needs to be included in the email. Occasionally the links are “broken” by the email client or even in the wrapping of the text on a page. Earlier this weekend, I got an email from another client asking about creating a nicer URL for their new facebook page. There is a simple answer to both of these issues.
Here is a quick and easy fix for this and other ugly URL issues.
Open up your htaccess file (or have your webmaster edit the file) and add a 301 redirect for the URL you would like to share.
The code is simple
redirect 301 /urlyouwant http://www.blahblah.com/reallyuglyurl
which would create a new “page” on your website at www.yoursite.com/urlyouwant
For example, instead of sharing this link:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g57192-d82517-Reviews-Forty_Putney_Road_Bed_and_Breakfast-Brattleboro_Vermont.html
you would be able to share this:
http://www.fortyputneyroad.com/tripadvisor
using this code:
redirect 301 /tripadvisor http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g57192-d82517-Reviews-Forty_Putney_Road_Bed_and_Breakfast-Brattleboro_Vermont.html
You can use this same redirect code to point any url to any other url. Try it http://www.fortyputneyroad.com/tripadvisor here.
Tim, what is the advantage to this versus just making the words “TripAdvisor” a link using your email program?
Hi Sarah, Don’t know how I missed your comment, sorry about that! The advantage is really just ease of inclusion. Its a lot easier to type myinn.com/tripadvisor than it is to use the full link. Also in many cases, the long URL will wrap, and not work properly. Cheers! Tim
hay thanx for the useful article