Redesigned site w/ new dirs and filenames

What about the hits from old pages?

[Birdman]

Hello WW. I've recently redesigned a medium-sized and changed most of the navigational structure. New dirs and filenames. I've read quite a few posts on 301 redirects and such. I just want to be sure I do this right so I don't lose traffic or pr. Should I keep all of the popular entry-point urls and put redirects on them? I quite confused about this since I've only been designing for about six months and this is my first redesign. Could someone nudge me in the right direction, please? Most appreciated! :)

Birdman

[jdMorgan]

Birdman,

You don't have to keep the actual pages, just put 301 Permanent server redirects on those old
URLs, and point them to the new equivalent page, your home, or your site map, whichever is more
appropriate for each case.

This can easily be done on Apache using either mod_alias or mod_rewrite, and I'm sure there's
an equivalent for other popular servers.

Plan on leaving these redirects in place for a long time or forever - as long as you get any
significant traffic to the old URLs.

Hope this helps,
Jim

[mosio]

Jim,

I think some time ago, spiders did not like pages that were automatically redirected to another page, has that changed? Are there any spiders that penalize or do not encourage the use of redirected pages? I will appreciate if you could guide me!

Thanks,

Mosio

[jdMorgan]

mosio,

You are correct. That is why a server-generated 301 permanent redirect is recommended. It
tells the robot, "Look, this page is moved to this new URL, and it won't be back." Therefore,
there is no duplicate-content issue, which is what the search engines dislike.

Some SEs profess a dislike for meta-refresh redirects, because the timing of the redirect can mess
them up if done too fast or too slow. Most of them won't follow client-side scripted redirects -
for example, JavaScript - since they don't interpret these scripts, either.

A 301 permanent redirect, implemented correctly, will cause the search engine to update the URL
it is using to find the page, and stop using the old one. Google, for example, will transfer the
PageRank of the old URL to the new URL when it sees the 301 redirect.

All links internal to your site should be updated to use the new URLs, and get as many sites
as possible which link to your pages to update their links as soon as possible, too.

Jim

[Birdman]

Thanks, jdmorgan, for your advice. I guess it's time for me to learn how to put the permanent redirects on the pages now. Hopefully this will go smooth. Thanks again :)

[Birdman]

Well I can't seem to find any information on how to do this on a windows server. Anyone have any advice, I'm lost over here. Thanx
;0

[jdMorgan]

Birdman,

Try here [webmasterworld.com]. This is for IIS which may or may not be what you mean by "Windows Server". I'm an old Apache
guy, so I no speakee Windoze...

Best,
Jim

[Birdman]

Thanks again MR. Morgan. Unfortunately, I speakee no Windoze or Apachese. But that does help. I've e-mailed everyone I could at our host and I will look into using the ASP alternative, although the 301 redirect sounds like what I really want to do. I hope they get back with me. They have ignored me before :(

[mosio]

Jim,

I really appreciate your advice!

Thank you,

Mosio

[Marcia]

That 301 works perfectly. I moved a site from a directory of a domain, using 301 to the new location right before the previous update. It was picked up last month and is now right at Google where it was at the old location. I did make sure and get a couple of links changed to the new URL right away - not a domain, I put it at my ISP. Just with .htaccess, I don't have mod_rewrite.

[Birdman]

Marcia

That 301 works perfectly

Which one are you refering to? I can't get any answers out of the host except to put a meta-refresh. That's not good, right?

[Birdman]

I can't seem to figure this out. We're on a Windows 2000 server and our hosts are of no help. I don't have a .htaccess nor can I place one. I don't have access to IIS manager(that I know of). Can someone help explain my options at this point. Sorry to keep harping on this subject. I just can't seem to get it.
Thanks,
Birdman

[jdMorgan]

Birdman,

Since you're hosted on a Win2K machine, and the posters here on this thread so far have limited
knowledge of how that works, you might want to re-post with a new title like, "How do I do per-
page 301 permanent redirects on a Win2K Server?" That might get you some more specific help.

Other than that, make a note to never host with anyone who won't give you full ability to control
(and mess up) your own domain(s) - that's my #1 requirement for a host. The upside is that I can do
anything I want with my sites, the downside is that I have to wait until the wee hours to change my
.htaccess file, and before I do that, I open a second browser window - ready to test my site the
instant the new file goes up. If the new .htaccess file doesn't work, I can back it out pretty
fast (and I've had lots of practice!). :o

Best,
Jim