301 Redirects
A friend is re-building their own site and for SEO purposes most of the pages will have different names, some of the old pages are in the SEs and so he doesn't want to completely loose visitors with non-existant pages. Someone has suggested using a 301 redirects but all they could say was that it goes in the htaccess.
Can anyone else offer a better explaination of what exactly a 301 redirect is, how it works, how it is implimented and does the visitor 'see' the redirect?
Cheers
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
Suzanne posted this at 13:52 — 9th June 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
It's a regular redirect (like the 404 redirect)
RedirectPermanent /local/file.html http://www.domain.com/newfile.php
Then visitor shouldn't see the redirect, but it will be recorded in the server logs. You can use this information to determine what pages need to be redirected, and over time when you can remove the redirect (if you chose to).
apache.org has more information on redirects.
Suzanne posted this at 13:54 — 9th June 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_alias.html for Apache 2.0
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.1/mod/mod_alias.html for Apache 2.1
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html for Apache 1.x
The Webmistress posted this at 14:29 — 9th June 2003.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Would you say that there is any advantages in using this rather than just having a custom 404?
Busy posted this at 22:37 — 9th June 2003.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
the 301 auto redirects while the 404 gives reason or link
in the htaccess its just:
redirect 301 /old folder/ http://www.new site.net/
I use 301 redirects on my site, you enter the old url and the new one is displayed, can try it if you want www.munchtech.com/ezhtml/ will take you to ezhtml.net
even thou the pages are still on the first site they are never seen.
Suzanne posted this at 23:43 — 9th June 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
I recommend the RedirectPermanent over the redirect 301. It's the preferred syntax. Either way, it tells search engine spiders to update their links. A RedirectPermanent says, essentially, the former resource is no longer available, it has been permanently relocated to this other url.
If you want to use a redirect for a temporary period, you can use the 302 or RedirectTemp.
It's MUCH better than a 404, either way, as the user just gets the right information. If you want people to change their bookmarks, you could add a note at the top that the url has changed, blah blah.
The Webmistress posted this at 07:56 — 10th June 2003.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Suzanne, what do you mean by RedirectPermanent?
Suzanne posted this at 13:12 — 10th June 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html#redirectperm
It's the proper syntax for a 301 that has been, er, redirected permanently.
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html#redirect explains Redirect more.
See the above urls (previous message) for links for other Apache versions.
(previous message's errors have been fixed as well)
The Webmistress posted this at 13:48 — 10th June 2003.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Thanks
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