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What a wonderful forum you have here. My company is changing shopping carts from one which uses forms in shtml pages to a dyanmically generated storefront written in php.
We have several number one rankings in google for our most productive search terms. Last I checked, we had a Pagerank of 6, but I use Linux and don't have a toolbar. We are number 1 in our category in the Google directory. We've been around a long time, so we have a lot of folks who have bookmarked various pages, not to mention links on pages all over the world in languages I can neither read or write or sometimes display.
I was thinking of using mod rewrite to redirect the old urls to the new. How would google perceive this? Would this be "sneaky redirection?" Our intention is not be sneaky. We want to appear professional and not use a "this page has moved" type link. I did that a couple of years ago and for over a month, our pages were listed as mycompany.com has moved, etc. I used no index, no follow tags, but since it took almost 2 months for the new url to filter into the google directory, it indexed it, but didn't follow.
We're not changing our url name this time; the domain name will resolve to the new page, but we are concerned about all of our internal pages and how to preserve our listings while improving our site. We also want to make it easy for our repeat customers to use their bookmarks.
In other words, I wish to have my cake and eat it too. Asking for too much?
No, enjoy your cake. Google recommends using a 301 redirect. See their webmaster information [google.com] pages.
And Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!
Jim
jdmorgan said it all but I just wanted to welcome a fellow redhat user ;) - Enjoy WebmasterWorld....
Nick
I've been out of touch with search engine issues, but now that I have found your site I can read up on everything.
Thank you again.
A custom 404 will be fine. I would suggest a short explanatory text and links to your main page and site map. No redirect or java scripts. And when Googlebot does not find one of your old pages, that page will simply disappear from the Google index.
Please note that I said nothing about met-refreshes above.
I suggest you use a 301-Moved Permanently server redirect on pages which have been exactly replaced, a 410-Gone server response for pages which are gone and have no new equivalent at all, and a 302-Moved Temporarily server redirect to a site map for pages which have been replaced, but not by exact equivalents.
Reserve 404-Not Found as a site error detection mechanism - It means you forgot to cover a missing file with one of the above responses. As such, it also means "webmaster error", and not "this page moved or deleted." Otherwise, you will fill your logs with "we've moved" notices, and bury any legitimate error reports that might be present.
If you are hosted on Apache, you can do this easily using mod_alias or mod_rewrite in httpd.conf or in .htaccess, both of which are text files on the server. For information on redirection and mod_rewrite, see this Introduction to mod_rewrite [webmasterworld.com] thread.
Jim
Back to mod rewrite again. :( After reading reading Google's instructions last night, I was hopeful that a meta-refresh might do it... It does acomplish the same thing from the surfer's point of view. And normal people can do it easily enough. :) But reading it through again, I see that it says 301. Period. I must be working too many hours.
If you are hosted on Apache, you can do this easily using mod_alias or mod_rewrite in httpd.conf or in .htaccess, both of which are text files on the server. For information on redirection and mod_rewrite, see this Introduction to mod_rewrite thread.
Mod rewrite is an old acquaintance I try to avoid. It's one of the reasons I own "Mastering Regular Expressions." The webserver runs apache on freeBSD. I think I'll use .htaccess.
Thanks, I shall take your advice on the 301.
On the other hand, you may be able to use Redirect [httpd.apache.org], RedirectMatch, or some of the other flavors available in mod_alias if you want to keep it simple.
Again, you can have your cake and eat it, too. :)
Jim
