# 301 redirect from existing thread to external url, not working
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 23, 2018, 9:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585 "2018-11-23T09:45:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tkrunning](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tkrunning)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2018, 9:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/1 "2018-11-23T09:45:04Z")
Hi, I’m trying to set up a 301 redirect from a forum thread to an external URL (on my blog) in /admin/customize/permalinks but it’s not doing anything.
I also tried deleting the original thread, but then it just says you need to log in to see it rather than redirecting to the external url.
I also tried renaming the original thread so the URL changed, but still no dice.
Any ideas if there’s a way to accomplish this? Alternatively, is there a way of setting a canonical link for that specific thread to the external URL instead?
Thanks 🙂
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### Author:  [@SidV](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SidV)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/2 "2018-11-23T12:41:13Z")
Related: [https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-redirect-from-permalinks/59727](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-redirect-from-permalinks/59727)
I think we have the same problem ☹
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/3 "2018-11-23T12:57:37Z")
I don’t think that you can use a permalink to override a topic. If you want a topic to link somewhere wise I think your only solution is to put a link to the other thing in the topic.
What is the use case?
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/4 "2018-11-23T21:50:17Z")
@pfaffman is right. Permalinks can’t be used to override URLs used by Discourse since they’re checked at the very last resort when no route was found.
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### Author:  [@tkrunning](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tkrunning)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/5 "2018-11-24T16:53:08Z")
If anyone else comes looking to this topic in the future, the way I had to do it was to transfer the whole topic to a new one (to preserve the old content), then deleting the old topic.
I first tried this while the old topic was in a non-public category, but then it didn’t work (users would see a login screen instead of being redirected). But then I un-deleted it, moved it to a public category, and deleted it again—and it worked!
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> What is the use case?
For me it was that I wanted to move content that started out as a topic on my forum last year into a blog post format (so I can easily update the _date_ of the content for SEO reasons). The topic was doing well for certain terms, so I wanted to transfer that “SEO juice” to the updated blog post.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/301-redirect-from-existing-thread-to-external-url-not-working/102585/6 "2018-12-24T16:53:18Z")
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