A Triumph Over Adversity: The WordPress IONOS Hosting User’s Guide to Redirecting .aspx Files

Redirecting a URL should be straightforward, correct? That’s what we thought, too. However, as we discovered, redirecting a specific .aspx path to an external URL in a WordPress site hosted on IONOS proved to be more of a trial by fire than anticipated. This article describes the frustrating—but ultimately successful—journey of making the redirect work.

The Goal

We wanted a basic redirect:

https://example.com/stub/example.aspx

to send visitors to:

https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx

That’s it. A one-line change, right?

Well… no.

Attempt 1: The Obvious .htaccess Redirect

We started with the simplest approach:

Redirect 301 /stub/example.aspx https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx

Placed neatly above the WordPress block in .htaccess.

Result: Didn’t work. The browser tried to download the .aspx file instead.

Attempt 2: mod_rewrite to the Rescue

We escalated to Apache’s rewrite rules:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^stub/example\.aspx$ https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx [R=301,L]

Result: Still no dice. Same result — file download or 404.

Attempt 3: WordPress functions.php Magic

Next, we tried a WordPress-level solution. We added this to the active theme’s functions.php:

add_action('init', function() {
    if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] === '/stub/example.aspx') {
        wp_redirect('https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx', 301);
        exit;
    }
});

Result: It worked… but only on a development server.

On IONOS? It didn’t work at all. Why?

Turns out, requests for .aspx files on IONOS never reach WordPress — the server intercepts them before PHP can even get involved.

Attempt 4: Redirection Plugin

We tried using the trusted Redirection plugin in WordPress:

Source URL: /stub/example.aspx

Target URL: https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx

Result: Nope. Same issue — the server short-circuits before WordPress or the plugin sees the request.

Realization: IONOS Doesn’t Like .aspx

At this point, we understood the root problem:

IONOS (Apache/Linux stack) doesn’t know how to handle .aspx extensions. Since there’s no handler, Apache doesn’t try to rewrite it — it just downloads the file or shows a 404.

The request never reaches .htaccess, WordPress, or any plugin. That’s why nothing worked.

Final Working Solution: The Fallback PHP Template

We finally hit gold with this clever workaround:

Step 1: Create a Redirect Script

We created a file at the root of the WordPress site called:

stub-example.php

Inside it:

<?php
header("Location: https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx", true, 301);
exit;

Step 2: Update .htaccess to Rewrite .aspx to .php

In .htaccess, we added:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^stub/example\.aspx$ /stub-example.php [L]

Step 3: Create an Empty Folder

Here’s the final twist: this didn’t work until we created an empty /stub/ folder in the root directory.

Why?

Without the folder, Apache rejected the entire /stub/example.aspx path as invalid. But with the folder in place, the rewrite rule worked — and the PHP script executed the redirect.

Final Result

Now, visiting:

https://example.com/stub/example.aspx

redirects beautifully to:

https://www.foobar.com/stub/example.aspx

Victory at last!

Lessons Learned

• File extensions matter on shared hosting. .aspx is foreign to Apache, especially on Linux.
• Apache won’t process rewrite rules for file extensions it doesn’t recognize unless you route them to a known handler (like PHP).
• WordPress plugins and PHP logic can’t act on requests that the server doesn’t route through WordPress.
• A clever combo of rewrite rules + a physical PHP file saved the day — with a surprise assist from an empty folder!

TL;DR — Working Redirect on IONOS

• Create stub-example.php with PHP redirect logic
• Create an empty /stub/ folder in your WordPress root
• Add this to .htaccess (above # BEGIN WordPress):

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^stub/example\.aspx$ /stub-example.php [L]

Done.