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They are getting rid of all of their old files and the existing directory structure.
They also have a mass of links coming in that do not go to just their main URL.
What I guess needs to be done is make it so www.site.com/oldfolder/oldfile.htm redirects to www.site.com/newfolder/newfile.html
What I wonder is what if we get rid of the old files and just make a custom 404 page? How much will that mess with spiders and the existing links as well as PR and such.
Also I do not understand how many of these files do you need to set up or how you make unique old files redirect to unique new files...
Now I have been reading about all of these 301 redirects and from my understanding that only works on a UNIX server?
So I did a search for 301 redirect and got many results. Much of the info is way over my head.
Here are the IIs suggestions:
global.asa and in the Session_OnStart
[w3schools.com...]
also this:
[xoc.net...]
ASP code to handle it:
<%
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.newdomain.com/newurl/"
Response.End
%>
What do I need to tell the client/server admin in order for this to go as smootly as possible. Please keep in mind I am not a programmer.
So far the list is custom 404 page.
And I also sent the ASP code.
Thanks in advance.
On to the more positive things;
The example code you gave is the "core" of a redirect in ASP and you could use exactly what you have their to create a very simple redirect script for an ASP page which has moved.
The downside is obviously that you need a script for each relocated resource and that the originals need to be ASP files, however if you use the next approach you only need one script because it's a little more complex.
If you have a lot of relocated items or they are things other than ASP pages then you are better off setting up a custom 404 script as these are much easier to maintain since there is just a big list of the redirects required (might be in the script, could be in an external file or database).
In my experience you are nearly always better off going straight to the 404 rather than attempting to use lots of little scripts scattered all over the place.
If you want to install a 404 script you would need to tell it what redirects you wanted, then your admin would need to save it somewhere within the website and then change the custom errors settings for the 404 to use that script instead of the default.
If you want to install individual scripts then you would need to create them first, changing the settings as you go. Once you have them all created then your admin could just copy them to the right places.
How much will that mess with spiders and the existing links as well as PR and such.
From a user and spider point of view if a redirect is done properly (code 301 if the move is permenant, 302 if its not) it is almost seemless. As long as the spider understands where the page has gone to the PR shouldn't be affected.
There are lots of free 404 scripts out there (I even offer one, but its more suited to coders than people like yourself) but at the end of the day they all do similar things - Permenant redirects, Temporary redirects plus some will also give you extra features beyond the two responses.
Really it will come down to what you want and what is available i.e. I imagine if you could find a free script which did basic redirects, came with a web-based interface script to manage the redirects and had full install instructions for your admin you'd be laughing...
- Tony
