multiple google listing's

htaccess removing listings

[Lonecrow]

Hi, I recently took over a site for a client. Previously they were using URL forwarding. I regisered them their own domain and re-wrote the site. So now for my primary search terms I have 4 of the top 10 positions on google out of 10,000 sites. Two are from the old domain and 2 are from the new domain. The old domain enjoys #1 and #2 and the new domain has #6 & #7.

I have tried using htaccess to tell google that the old pages have moved permenantly but it doesn't seem to work. Has anybody had success using a 302 redirect in htaccess?

Thanks for your opinions

[mcavic]

You should be using a 301 (permanent) redirect - that way, Google should drop the old domain and index the new one. Inktomi doesn't obey 301's, though, so you may want to do a thing where it serves a 404 to Slurp, and 301 to everyone else.

[nakulgoyal]

Are u on a windows box or *nix?

[Lonecrow]

Windows and yes thanks I meant 301 but typed 302 :)

Um..you know what never mind. I had made my htaccess entries 2 months ago using this syntax

redirect 301 /pf/HappyCustomers.asp [pets1st.com...]

There was about 12 pages that needed to be redirected. As of last week none of them had changed but I just double checked and now all but one has been updated in google. It just took longer then I thought because googlebot had been all over the site during the last two months.

So it appears that the redirect worked after all and I'll use it on the new site as well.

Thanks,

[g1smd]

It usually takes about 4 to 6 weeks for the redirect to take effect, sometimes longer. You'll also need to make sure that anyone that links to the old site updates their links to now point to the new site.

If you can't get to the server configuration to do the 301 thing, then the second best option is to put <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> on every page of the old site, and change all of the "internal" site navigation of the old site to point to the equivalent page(s) on the new site. Allow about 4 to 6 weeks for this to be actioned too.