Google only respects permanent (301) redirects - any other options?

Not allowed to use 301 redirect - what should I do?

[steiny]

I've been hosting for years with a decent free supplier, but 6 weeks ago I moved to a proper hosting company. To my horror I've discovered that I'm not allowed to set up a permanent redirect (301) from the old site, and have to use a kludgey html redirect.

The problem is this. Google only seems to recognise that your site has moved if you can set up a permanent redirect. I can't do this, so I'm faced with two options:

1) Use the HTML redirect and hope that one day it will learn about the new site (it hasn't in 6 weeks so far).
2) Kill the whole of the old site and wait for Google to rediscover the new site (which is linked from all over the web).

Being at the end of my tether - I've just done the second. But it is high risk. Have I done the right thing?

thanks

Tom

[jdMorgan]

Tom,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

You can make do with an html redirect if you have to. The results are much slower, but it does work eventually.

Put a simple page up on the old site that contains the <meta http-equiv refresh> tag, plus a plain-text href "We have moved" link to your new site. Most browsers will follow the meta refresh redirect, and 'bots will follow the plain-text link to your new site. It can take up to 3 or 4 months for this to work, depending on how well linked-to the original site was and its PageRank, but it does work eventually.

HTH,
Jim

[steiny]

Many thanks - putting such a referral page up was exactly what I did, but after about 6 weeks and no change I got desperate and just took down the referring page along with the whole of the old site. Do you think I'd be better off to leave it now, or to put the referral back up?

Also - many thanks for the warm welcome. It can be pretty rare on forums!

best,
Steiny

[jdMorgan]

steiny,

Leaving the meta refresh and link up will prevent you from losing visitors who have bookmarked your old URL - And you might even want to put up a note asking them to bookmark the new URL ("We have moved! Please wait until you see our new page, then press Control-D to bookmark it. If you do not see our new page after 5 seconds, please click here [example.com]." - Something like that.)

Re: the welcome, you will find that WebmasterWorld is quite different from most forums. The Terms of Service (see link below), the policies described in the welcome link I provided, and the firm-but-fair-minded moderation encourage useful discussion and a high degree of professionalism. Enjoy!

Jim