Setting up redirects from routes.php I have a "/5minutes" url in routes.php and people keep typing in "fiveminutes". Is there a way to call a 301 redirect directly in routes.php or would I need to set up an action in my plugin (or alternatively mess with server settings)?
I'd try and avoid the routes.php route (pun intended).  There isn't any need to get Craft involved in a redirect when your web server (Apache?) can handle it much faster.

If you're using Apache, then adding something like this to your public .htaccess file should do the trick:

RewriteRule ^fiveminutes$ /5minutes [NC,R=301,L]


Update:

Missed the part where you said this was in a plugin.  In that case you'd want to setup something like this in your main plugin's class file:

public function registerCpRoutes()
{
    return array(
        'fiveminutes' =&gt; array('action' =&gt; 'myPluginController/fiveMinuteRedirect'),
   );
}


Then from your MyPluginController.php class have an actionFiveMinuteRedirect() method that simply did a permanent redirect:

`$this-&gt;redirect('5minutes', true, 301);`