Does Google Pentalize you for using the redirect code.

[HookahMaster]

I am revamping my website. I am using the redirect code on my home page to direct it to the new site but I don't want google to pentalize me. Does anyone know how to replace an old website with a new one without leaving any broken links. I am using the same url put I need to know how to take the others of without broken links.

[Deliguy]

No. Just make sure that it's a 401 perminant redirect not a 301. If you have any other questions about it you can read the google webmaster guidelines.

[Faglork]

Originally Posted by Deliguy

Just make sure that it's a 401 perminant redirect not a 301.

This is utter nonsense. 401 is no redirect at all, 401 is the apache status code for "unauthorized access". According to RFC 2616:

401 Unauthorized

The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field (section 14.47) containing a challenge applicable to the requested resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Authorization header field (section 14.8). If the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401 response indicates that authorization has been refused for those credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the prior response, and the user agent has already attempted authentication at least once, then the user SHOULD be presented the entity that was given in the response, since that entity might include relevant diagnostic information.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html

Of course it should be a 301 "permanent redirect", as stated in the same RFC:

301 Moved Permanently

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

You should at least be familiar with the standards before giving advice on how to use them.

faglork

[ADAM Web Design]

Not that I'm defending the guy, because no matter what he was wrong, but more to clarify: he might have meant use a 301 redirect instead of a 302.

But be prepared to wait, HookahMaster. From what I've seen of 301 redirects, they seem to take a while. I've coded them in both ASP and via the permanent redirect option in IIS and neither really seemed to take.

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

But be prepared to wait, HookahMaster. From what I've seen of 301 redirects, they seem to take a while.

I've only moved an entire site once, and it was about a year ago, and it took about three weeks for the new site to replace the old one in all three of the major search engines. I'm not sure what the average wait is, but I was pleased it happened for that site as quickly as it did.

HookahMaster, you're keeping the same domain name, so I'd try to keep as many of the page names the same as is possible! If you must eliminate an old page, a trick I've used is to sign up for Google Sitemaps and submit all the old pages, after you've got the 301 redirects in place. Once Google tries to index those pages and hits the redirect, the old page will be replaced with the new page on Google.

Good luck!