Creating top-level (welcome page) redirects in SharePoint sites

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Scenario: You have several SharePoint web-applications (only only site collections). Whenever a user opens one of those using just an entry-URL (such as https://intranet) you want to redirect him/her to another site collection (not necessarily in the same web-application - for example to https://intranet/my .

This can be achieved in various was:

  • Create a HttpHandler
  • If using the Publishing Feature: Create a page derived from "Redirect Page"
  • ...

All of the above have some disadvantages: Either you have to write code, create custom configurations or - in the case of the "Redirect Page", there is a delay that is visible to the user.

I found a very easy way to create a "direct" redirect that requires no code and just uses SharePoint standard functionality.

  1. Go to the web you want to create the redirect.
  2. If it is a publishing web, go to the "Pages" library, otherwise, you can use any other library that is of type "Document Library"
  3. Go to the "List Settings"
  4. Ensure that under "Advanced Settings" "Allow management of content types" is set to "yes"
  5. In the "Content Types" section click on "Add from existing site content types"
  6. Add the "Link to a Document" content type
  7. Your content types lis should now include the "Link to a Documet" content type:
  8. Back on the list with its items, create a new item of type "Link to Document":
  9. Don't forget to publish your link if you have a publishing/approval process setup for your library!
  10. Now go to the "Site Settings" of your web and choose in "Look'n'Feel" section "Welcome Page":
  11. Enter your link as the welcome page of this web.

Now whenever your users will open the web without specifiying a specific page the "Welcome Page" (in german it is called more accurately (and so much german) "Homepage" ;)) comes into play, goes to your link and the link redirects directly to the page the page/document you want.

Cheers!!
SOURAV
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