# Fortra Automate Drupal Audit — Status Site: https://automate.fortra.com Client: Fortra (we have admin access to the Drupal backend) Last updated: 2026-04-23 ## Current status **Audit complete. Scope workbook sent to client. Waiting on their decisions.** Once the client returns the workbook with their picks filled in, plan is to implement the changes by hand through the Drupal admin UI (no scripting). ## Scope (what we're doing vs. not) Four rows of the client's prioritization sheet were in scope. We audited all three Drupal items; #44 (disavow toxic links) is outside Drupal, unrelated. - **T015 / Row 41** — Redirect chain audit (>2 hops) - **T016 / Row 42** — Update internal links that go through redirects - **T033 / Row 44** — (out of scope, SEO not Drupal) - **T063 / Row 46** — Standardize legacy `/node/N` links ### What we're doing (mechanical, no client input) - **15 redirect chain flattens** (T015 chain-over-2) — update the "To" field in the redirect admin so the chain goes directly to the final URL - **175 legacy `/node/N` link updates** (T063) — swap in the canonical alias - **183 link-via-redirect updates** (T016) — swap for the final URL Total: **373 manual edits** through the Drupal admin UI. ### What needs client input - **27 broken `/node/N` legacy links** — target nodes have been deleted and there's no redirect. Client picks "remove link" or "replace with URL X" per item. ### What we're intentionally leaving alone - **75 "dead" redirects** — mostly language-tagged entries (ES/FR/DE/IT). Bare-path requests 404 today, but they may still work correctly when hit with a language prefix (`/es/productos/...`, etc.). Risk of breaking multilingual behavior exceeds benefit. Client can revisit with a careful lang-context audit if desired. - **619 exact-duplicate redirect rows** — purely cosmetic data cleanup. Users unaffected. - **3 dangling self-redirects** — Drupal silently ignores them. Safe to delete but changes nothing user-facing. - **47 "conflicting" duplicate redirects** — after inspection, all 47 rows group into 21 unique sources. 18 of 21 are language-specific redirects doing intentionally different things per language. The 3 remaining "true" conflicts are also language-related (blank-language rows with different language-prefixed targets). All felt risky without deeper understanding of the client's multilingual setup. - **206 two-hop redirect chains** — in spec. Flattening would be a best-practice enhancement, not required. ## Key facts worth remembering - **Redirect table size:** 6,638 rows, 6,211 unique sources. Client's sheet said "219 redirects"; the number is 30× off but most of the extra rows are Drupal's auto-generated `/node/N` → alias redirects. - **Content scope:** 603 unique published nodes (758 admin rows; the extras are EN/ES/FR translation variants of the same NIDs). - **Node 17805** consistently returned "Failed to fetch" — only node we couldn't audit. Probably permissioned or soft-broken. Not worth blocking on unless the client cares. - **Drupal ignores self-redirects** where the source path is the canonical alias of a real node. That's why many "cycles" in the static table analysis don't actually harm anyone. - **Metatag module is installed**, but the Metatag: Verification submodule is NOT enabled. Enabling it adds a dedicated Google Site Verification field (output: ``). The `google` field in the default Metatag config is a different directive and validates against `notranslate`/`nositelinkssearchbox` only — wrong field for GSC verification. ## Files - `fortra_scope_and_decisions.xlsx` — **the workbook sent to the client.** Six tabs: Read Me, three "we're doing" tabs with the mechanical edits, one decisions tab, one "NOT touching" tab for transparency. - `fortra_t015_changes_v2.csv` — full T015 output (916 rows, all categories). Source data for the 15 chain flattens we'll implement. - `fortra_t016_t063_changes_v2.csv` — full T016/T063 output (399 rows). Source data for the 358 link updates we'll implement + the 27 broken links awaiting client decisions. - `fortra_t016_t063_dropped_v2.csv` — 69 rows dropped from the main v2 CSV during cycle verification (link targets that Drupal serves directly despite DB cycles). Audit trail. - `fortra_redirects_raw.csv` — full 6,638-row redirect table export. Reference. ## Resuming the work When the client returns the workbook: 1. Open `fortra_scope_and_decisions.xlsx` and read Tab 5 for their decisions on the 27 broken links. Add their picks into `fortra_t016_t063_changes_v2.csv` (or work straight from the workbook). 2. Work through tabs 2, 3, 4 in the admin UI. Batch by category rather than page: - Do all 15 redirect edits first (same admin page, fast) - Then the 358 link updates, probably grouped by source page so you only open each node once 3. Spot-check a handful of pages after implementing to confirm the changes rendered correctly. 4. Clear Drupal cache at `/admin/config/development/performance` once done, so the client can verify. ## Access - Drupal admin: `https://automate.fortra.com/admin/content` (Rian logged in via Chrome-native session — browser automation can see the same cookies) - No SSH / DB access. All work via the admin UI. ## One-off aside User also asked about adding a Google Site Verification meta tag. The correct path is to enable the **Metatag: Verification** submodule at `/admin/modules`, then paste the verification code into the new "Google" field under the Verification section of `/admin/config/search/metatag/global`. Not done yet — user will do it when ready.