1427843 - Redirect getfirefox.com and firefox.com to /new

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Infrastructure & Operations :: SSL Certificates, task)

Description

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

We ran an experiment in bug 1422042 to learn how modern versions of www.mozilla.org/firefox and www.mozilla.org/firefox/new compare among visitors who have been redirected from firefox.com and getfirefox.com.

Those experiments conclude that the /new page converts visitors to downloaders significantly better (~10%-25% better) among this audience.

Let's 301 (permanent) redirect those two URLs to /firefox/new/.

--- History ---

These URLs have been pointed at /firefox/ since spring 2017. Before then, they were pointed at /firefox/products/. When we decommissioned the /products page we ran a similar test (https://mana.mozilla.org/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=66650560) that concluded the redirect would not significantly reduce conversion rate.

But we _didn't_ test if there were better places for that redirect to go. Now we have, hence this bug.

Comment 1

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

:ezeigenhorn, can we coordinate this change? It is likely to increase the number of Firefox downloads by thousands per week, because it redirects significant traffic volume. Considering that, it would be good to do it...

* soon, and
* with one eye on critical performance measures (download rates, search position on branded terms, etc.)

Please let me know (ni me here) when you think it will happen so I can watch the numbers.

Comment 2

[Eric Ziegenhorn :ericz]

Sure, how about on Monday Jan 8th some time?

To be clear we want http and https versions of getfirefox.com and firefox.com to redirect to https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new right?

And we're not worrying about the language.

Comment 3

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

:ericz, 2017-01-08 works, ping me in irc or slack (hoosteeno) anytime. Two questions before we push the button:

* Are there any locale-specific rules on the current redirects?
* Are there any variations on the parameters that I might not be seeing? (I see getfirefox.com -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/?utm_source=getfirefox-com&utm_medium=referral and firefox.com -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/?utm_source=firefox-com&utm_medium=referral)

We will definitely want to redirect http/https versions.

Comment 4

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

:ericz tells me that we have a number of TLD variations on these:

>e.g. getfirefox.org, getfirefox.net, getfirefox.co.uk, getfirefox.de and www.* variants of some of those

There are also firefox.pt, firefox.lt, and maybe others.

:flod, do you think there is any context we may be missing here that would suggest NOT standardizing the redirect destination of vanity domains across locales and geographies? For example, right now firefox.pt redirects to http://www.mozilla.org/pt/firefox/fx/, which eventually lands at https://www.mozilla.org/pt-BR/firefox/. If we standardized on the change suggested by this bug, firefox.pt would redirect to https://www.mozilla.org/pt/firefox/new/ (which would eventually land at pt-BR too).

Comment 5

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Not sure who would be the best person to answer this question. 

Personally, I don't see a problem in having a consistent point of redirect, I would even suggest to use https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ (without locale code) and let the accept languages header do its job.

One note: I have the feeling you're starting from a wrong assumption though, and that's that Mozilla manages all these domains. It likely doesn't (i.e. it doesn't own firefox.it or getfirefox.it)

Comment 6

[Paul [:pmac] McLanahan]

(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] from comment #5)
> Personally, I don't see a problem in having a consistent point of redirect,
> I would even suggest to use https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ (without
> locale code) and let the accept languages header do its job.

I would agree that just pointing them all at the locale-free URL is the way to go. This way people see the language they want without the bias from the link on which they happened to click. Easier to implement as well.

Comment 7

[Eric Ziegenhorn :ericz]

Additionally in that vein:

firefox.hu -> https://mozilla.org/firefox (not sure why that doesn't keep the language like the others)
firefox.be -> http://www.mozilla-europe.org (different still, one of several domains that redirect here)

Also both getfirefox.com and especially firefox.com have multiple redirects such as

getfirefox.com/nightly -> http://nightly.mozilla.org
firefox.com/android -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/android/?utm_source=firefox-com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=firefox-android
firefox.com/universityambassadors -> https://www.mozilla.org/contribute/universityambassadors/

There are lots more of those for firefox.com, these seem like they wouldn't impact this request but I want to make sure it's known.  As for comment 5, I'm only looking at domains that currently do redirects for.

Comment 8

[Paul [:pmac] McLanahan]

(In reply to Eric Ziegenhorn :ericz from comment #7)
> Additionally in that vein:
> 
> firefox.hu -> https://mozilla.org/firefox (not sure why that doesn't keep
> the language like the others)
> firefox.be -> http://www.mozilla-europe.org (different still, one of several
> domains that redirect here)

Looks like we can just point those to www.m.o/firefox/new/ as well since mozilla-europe.org is just a redirect to www.m.o.

> Also both getfirefox.com and especially firefox.com have multiple redirects
> such as
> 
> getfirefox.com/nightly -> http://nightly.mozilla.org
> firefox.com/android ->
> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/android/?utm_source=firefox-
> com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=firefox-android
> firefox.com/universityambassadors ->
> https://www.mozilla.org/contribute/universityambassadors/
> 
> There are lots more of those for firefox.com, these seem like they wouldn't
> impact this request but I want to make sure it's known.  As for comment 5,
> I'm only looking at domains that currently do redirects for.

I think that's right. Any of those specific redirects should stay in place. This is only asking for the root URL "/" to be updated for these.

Comment 9

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

Great, just capturing all the specs above.

1. We'll 301 redirect the root directory of firefox.com, getfirefox.com, and domain-suffix variations (e.g. firefox.hu), including https and http. 
2. We'll redirect them all to https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ with no locale.
3. We'll add the following parameters to the redirect in all cases, replacing the {{domain-separated-by-dashes}} with the domain, separated by dashes

?utm_source={{domain-separated-by-dashes}}&utm_medium=referral

For example,

getfirefox.com -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-com&utm_medium=referral
firefox.hu -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-hu&utm_medium=referral

:ericz, if the above seem complete and accurate, we're good to schedule this change. I will want to be online to monitor effects, so mornings, non-Friday, are best.

Comment 10

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

At appx. 8:50 a.m. 2018-01-11, the redirects described in comment 9 went live. I watched referral traffic shapes and global download numbers in realtime on GA; the traffic shapes moved as expected (referrals dropped to nearly 0 on /firefox/ and jumped on /firefox/new/) while downloads remained steady. I annotated GA with this change. 

:ericz, can you paste in the complete list of domains that were altered for posterity's sake? And then I think we can close this. Thanks all!

Comment 11

[Eric Ziegenhorn :ericz]

Here is the list of changed redirects:

firefox.com -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-com&utm_medium=referral
firefox.hu -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-hu\&utm_medium=referral
firefox.pt -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-pt&utm_medium=referral
firefox.be -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-be&utm_medium=referral
firefox.lt -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=firefox-lt&utm_medium=referral

getfirefox.com -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-com\&utm_medium=referral
getfirefox.net -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-net\&utm_medium=referral
getfirefox.de -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-de\&utm_medium=referral
getfirefox.co.uk -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-co-uk\&utm_medium=referral
getfirefox.org -> https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/?utm_source=getfirefox-org&utm_medium=referral