meta refresh Redirect

I set up

[jjdesigns4u]

I set up a meta refresh redirect on the home page of my old site and made the page refresh in zero seconds to the new website home page

will google have a problem with this?

[Catnip]

No that will be fine. BUT put a link to your new URL on the page because Google won't follow the redirect.

[Yidaki]

I'd do a server side redirect using htaccess [google.com]. Do a site search for meta refresh google [google.com] and you'll find pretty much suggestions.

[allanp73]

I would avoid meta refreshes usually they are associated with spam. The old would get a possible ban from the search engines.

[ogletree]

I did the same thing at first and all google did was put links to that page in the SERPS. They will not follow they will index that page only. 301 redirect is the way to go. It loads much faster than a refresh anyway.

[Yidaki]

Think we have some parallel discussions here... (tip: use the recent posts list [webmasterworld.com])
This thread explains a working solution for redirects:
Programmed redirect, can google read it? [webmasterworld.com]

[jjdesigns4u]

what if you can not set up a 301

[Yidaki]

>what if you can not set up a 301

Do you mean if you don't have permissions / access to modify htaccess at all?

Could we please continue the discussion at this other thread [webmasterworld.com]?

[edited by: Yidaki at 7:30 pm (utc) on July 21, 2003]

[FleaPit]

Then you should stick with the meta redirect. I assume you have no rankings of value on this domain in the unlikely event that Google shafts you so, just go ahead.!

[mcavic]

If you can't do a 301, I'd just do a page with the new link and a message that it's moved. That way, people are sure to notice, and more likely to update their links.

A meta refresh of 0 seconds is especially annoying, because it makes it hard to use the back button.

[g1smd]

The meta refresh, if you have to use it, should be about 3 to 5 seconds, if you don't want to confuse users.

Make sure you have a "we have moved to..." notice on the page.

Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> to the page so that Google does not list it, but does follow the links.

Add a normal clickable link, with a "we have moved" message, linking to the new page for spiders to follow.

Find all of the sites that link to the old page, and email them to change their link to point to the new page.

[canuckseo]

I've actually seen an example or 2 meta refreshes being used successfully on Google.

For one of our keyphrases, the number 1 result is using a refresh tag (with no delay) to go to the number 2 result. Google's cache of result 1 is showing Result 2 - no content at all on result 1.

Does anyone think google will catch this or is this ok to use right now for Google?