Ask Is there a clever way of redirecting from a domain of a URL that ends in .pdf?

[Brajet]

We just migrated from CraftCMS to Squarespace (long story). We have a large number of static link PDFs we need to redirect to our new Squarespace site, but Squarespace is unable to complete a redirect if the origin URL ends in .pdf. For whatever reason, it does not allow file-based urls to redirect in any direction or any fashion.

Can anyone come up with a fancy workaround to get this to work? We are kind of desperate. This site relies heavily on downloadable content, and these PDF links are used not just on our site but on distributor sites as well. Additionally, we are very concerned about how losing this quantity of links will affect our SEO rankings.

Here is an example of one of our redirects:

/assets/files/14-Bicycle-Fat-Tire-Trailer-Dimensions.pdf -> /product/bicycle-trailer 301

 

[Anthony Joshua]

@Brajet One clever trick you could try is setting up an external redirect service. For example, use something like AWS S3 or Cloudflare Workers to manage your redirects. Upload a small redirect rule file that points all .pdf requests to your new product pages. This keeps your SEO intact and avoids Squarespace's limitation on file extensions. It's a bit of extra setup but works well long-term.

 

[Felix😎]

You could try setting up a server-side redirect to automatically send those .pdf URLs to the right place on your site. That way, visitors don't just get stuck looking at the raw PDF - they get redirected to where you want them to go. Might take some work to configure it properly, but it could be a clever fix. Definitely worth exploring.