Is there a way to redirect the root of a SharePoint application to a sub-site?

Question

So, I have a customer with an application, lets call it https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff - then, the customer builds a sub-site called https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/widget-a

In the future, they plan to build more sub-sites, like widget-b, widget-c, etc. but for right now, they have just the one sub-site. Until they get these other sub-sites built, however, the customer wants all traffic going to https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/ to be redirected to https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/widget-a/.

I tried setting an HTTP redirect in IIS, so that the root would get redirected to the sub-site, with the "Only redirect requests to content in this directory (not subdirectories)" checkbox ticked. With this enabled, if a user typed in https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff to their browser, it would correctly flip to https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/widget-a. But if the user typed in https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/widget-a it would get redirected to https://customersite.sharepoint.stuff/widget-a/widget-a and an error.

I think the problem is that the folder "widget-a" does not actually exist, according to what IIS understands. If I actually create that folder in the root of where the application exists, then the whole thing breaks and nothing can be reached.

I have read about using a redirect web part, but I wanted to see if there was some other solution.

Answer 1

Hi,

I would have tried what you already tried.

Other solutions may involve other agencies of your organization. Did you talk to your network/ dns team if they can do a redirection. Or do you use any load balancer which can reroute such traffic for the time being.

If you have UAG security, I think an UAG administrator can also do a similar redirect. But that needs to be verified.

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Thanks, Soumya | MCITP, SharePoint 2010

Answer 2

Hi,

For this to work it is better to have SharePoint do the redirection and not IIS.

On the root site collection in SharePoint, create a redirect page to redirect to widget-a subsite. To create the redirect page you will need to:

A. access the root site collection. So if you previously did not create is, create it first

B. Enable publishing features ( Site Actions - Site Settings - Site Collection Features - Enterprise Publishing features)

    activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

Site Actions - Site Settings - Manage Site Features

    activate SharePoint Server Publishing

C. Create the redirect page:

   Go to the Pages document Library in the site collection

   Create a new page - and select the redirect page layout

   Edit the new page and specify the Redirect URL. Save the document and publish it.

D. Set the created page as the welcome page  ( Site Actions - Site Settings - Look and Feel - Welcome Page)

Just a amall remark. Once in place if you access the site as a site collection administrator, you will see the redirect page for 5 seconds. This will not be the case for your normal users

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Dirk Van den Berghe

Answer 3

Thank you - Very helpful