Pathauto module not bulk generating new aliases

25 comments

Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 10:01pm by Schoonzie

I was in the process of building a new site today and wanted to rebuild all my URL aliases to use a better format (the site is not yet live, so I didn't have to worry about the search engine impacts of it). I deleted all the current aliases in the system (Site Building > URL aliases > Delete aliases) and told Pathauto to rebuild them (goto pathauto configuration screen and check the "Bulk generate aliases for [nodes/categories/users] that are not aliased" checkboxes) but I was told by Pathauto that no aliases had been generated.

Pathauto

It turns out that when the Pathauto update action "Do nothing. Leave the old alias intact" is selected (which is better for SEO) it doesn't bulk generate new aliases, even when no alias exists. I guess this is "better safe then sorry" logic that the Pathauto maintainers decided upon, but it's a little counter intuitive. When I tell my system to "Bulk generate aliases for [nodes/categories/users] that are not aliased", I expect it to do just that.

Pathauto Update Actions

Simple fix is to change your update action setting to "Create a new alias. Delete the old alias.", bulk generate your new aliases and then change the setting back.

25 comments. Have your say.

Comments

No Simple Fix

Submitted by Daniel B (not verified) on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 4:09am.

Glad to see someone else doesn't think this makes sense. However your suggestion of setting to "Create a new alias. Delete the old alias." will destroy any alias's you have manually created. Isn't that exactly what you are trying to avoid with the original setting? I'll submit this as a bug unless I can find it has allready been reported.

I was going crazy until I

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8:38pm.

I was going crazy until I found this post. I spend many hours looking at this 'problem', thanks for the solution.

Think I was having this problem the other day.

Submitted by Gavin Doolan (not verified) on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 6:39am.

I'm still new to Drupal and path auto module, but I think this is why I was having grief with making changes to my url structure. I will keep this mind.

My site is new so I wasn't too worried about breaking url's etc..

Thnaks for your overview

Submitted by eve isk (not verified) on Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 8:17am.

I think index aliases are not good for SEO and I would not agree that they provide much benefit for the users. The creation time for nodes is stored anyway so you could build an archive view using these data.

Using index aliases will not only bloat the url_aliases table but will generate many pages with similar or even duplicate content and will add many more navigational links. Too much navigational choices don't increase a site's usability.

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Thank you! :)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 6:57am.

Thank you! :)

Thanks!

Submitted by Corey (not verified) on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 2:05pm.

Thank you for posting this. I was wondering why this wasn't generating aliases when none existed. Problem solved now.

Thank you! Exactly what I was

Submitted by Noel (not verified) on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 1:29pm.

Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for.

to replace content/* aliases with newly created/tweaked paths

Submitted by bronius (not verified) on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 6:58am.

Old post, I know, but it pointed me in a good direction for #drupal-support. Here's what surfaced:

To delete default content/* paths in pathauto by content type and bulk generate new ones after having set new pathauto paths, first be sure pathauto setting "Create the new alias. Delete the old alias." is set, then visit admin/content/node, filter by content type, check all, and select Update Options: Update path alias.

Bless you - this was the only

Submitted by daveC (not verified) on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9:54am.

Bless you - this was the only way I could find to do a "bulk" update of my pathauto paths, after changing the pathauto patterns on one of my content types.

(In Drupal 7 on Windows, when I tried to run the bulk updater at /admin/config/search/path/update_bulk, I always get an Access Denied error, even as user 1.)

Thank you again!

I've found it a good argument

Submitted by e- marketing (not verified) on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 11:20am.

I've found it a good argument to establish your point. I am glad to learn about working of pathauto module not bulk generating new aliases. It is a very useful discussion.

I've been looking for the

Submitted by design engineering (not verified) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 9:27pm.

I've been looking for the information. I am benefited by the useful lesson on pathauto module and bulk generating aliases. Thanks for the excellent tutorial. keep posting.

I am excited to learn about

Submitted by media buyer (not verified) on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 11:37am.

I am excited to learn about how to use the Path module to create specific URL aliases for our bulk content, such as the recipes. Thanks for valuable information.

Every new content you make on

Submitted by dealing with anxiety (not verified) on Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 3:36pm.

Every new content you make on your Drupal site will have an URL alias created. However, pathauto module is not bulk generating new aliases. It is a nice work.