Post-update question on .shtml pages

[aus_dave]

I had one page on my site with a .shtml extension that was crawled last month and is now in the update. This was before I knew how to use .htaccess to make the server interpret .htm files with server side includes.

I eventually replaced this page with a .htm version, so as an interim measure I have put a redirect on the old .shtml page so that my Google traffic doesn't get confused.

What is the best way to handle this problem? There are no links to the .shtml file anywhere on my site so will it eventually drop out? Or will the .shtml redirect page still appear to Google as a valid page and stay in the index?

[OppositeView]

Putting in a "permanet redirect" in via htaccess is the best idea.

Google will find the new page

OV

[aus_dave]

Thanks OppositeView, I will look into how to do a permanent redirect. Google will certainly find the .htm page as all the links are to that page now and the .shtml is an orphan, with a redirect :).