differences between redirect and global redirect modules?

From my own usage I have Global redirecting all duplicate versions of the same URL to the correct one. For example /node/1 is valid without Global. With redirect I have it going a step further and redirecting pattern-like URLs to a different alias. For example (and don't ask me why I have it set this way because I no longer remember) I have an alias set on /products/product-title and then use redirect to change it from that to catalog/product-title. Again, I don't know why I'm doing that and I should probably figure it out one day but I'm too busy right now.

But that's the main difference I can see. Redirect can do patterns and specific redirects and Global is just for clean/nonclean URL redirects among a few other things.

The important difference (as RKS mentioned) is that Global Redirect is not really about doing redirects; it's about cleaning up the duplicate content problems that Drupal can create. It's really an essential module. There's a good post about it here:

http://www.volacci.com/blog/ben-finklea/2010/november/19/drupal-seo-how-...

I can't believe I have the same question and haven't been able to answer it definitively. If automatically redirecting from /node/[NID] to the URL alias of the node is possible with this module will someone document how to do it?! I've installed the module and am trying to figure this out.

OK. So a discussion on IRC indicates that the Redirect module does not accomplish the key functionality provided by Global Redirect. Which is to say, Redirect will not (NOT) automatically redirect attempts to visit http://yoursite.com/node/[nid] to the URL alias for that node.

To me, Global Redirect really acts like a "cleaner" of your urls and to make sure your urls are optimized and pointing to the correct things. The Redirect module will redirect pages if you change their names or put them in new locations. And with the Redirect module you can point your page to any page that you want, including external links.

This may give a clearer answer: http://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/1372/what-is-the-difference-be...

Although, I will say it seems a bit confusing still because the README.txt file for the Redirect module states: "This is the new module home for a unified redirection API (also replaces path_redirect and globalredirect)."

I disagree that this is "minor" given the confusion concerns the module's core functionality and is caused by poor documentation on Redirect's behalf. Redirect does not replace the essential functionality provided by Global Redirect and this should be clarified in the README.txt and on the project homepage.

Perhaps we should help out here: #905914: Merge global redirect functions into Redirect module

I have not used "Global Redirect" but I use "Redirect" and it works extremely well for my use case. I use it to 301 my "dead" pages or 404 pages that people externally link to me. That way, if somebody links to mysite.com/example-wrong-url, I can easily 301 that URL to mysite.com/example-right-url, so that the user experience is better (the person gets to the page they intended) and helps with SEO ("link juice" is properly passed). Also, the Redirect module shows you which pages are 404ing, so you can fix them really quickly. I use Google Webmaster Tools to check for these as well. On top of that, what really drew me to this module was how user friendly it was after installed, so I can have anybody on my team (non-devs) make the changes.

This was also answered in comment #6 of #1339686: Documentation on project page is unclear.

I don't know what the commenter in #2 had in mind by "pattern", but based on #1665808: Redirect with pattern or token and #963668: Mention the Match Redirect module on project page / documentation it seems pretty clear that Redirect does not support any kind of pattern matching on incoming paths. If that's not true, I'd like to know details.