Redirection

[DarrenPWS]

I have recently re-designed a website for a client. They had one designed several years ago and decided they wanted a more up-to-date design.

The old one has several pages indexed highly in google under the appropriate key-words, but they no longer exist. I have two questions:

1. How long will the old pages be indexed in the search engines and how long will it take to replace themor for them to be removed etc.?

2. Is there a way I can create a single page that will be in place of the old pages and will redirect the user to the new homepage - and should I use <meta name=robots content=noindex/follow> ???

Thanks in advance,

Darren Darkins

[OleTom]

The Right Way:

To redirect a URL if you have a NCSA or Apache server. Sorry, this doesn't work on Netscape Enterprise Servers. To redirect from one URL to another you need to create a file called .htaccess. In that file place the following:
Redirect oldURL newURL
Change oldURL to the path of the old URL and newURL to the path of the new url. An example of a redirection would be:
Redirect /path/to/file.html http://www.domain.com/path/to/file.html
Save your file and upload it to the server. When you try to access the now redirected URL you will automatically be sent to the new URL. It's much fast then using meta refresh.

The Easy Way:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://webdesign.about.com/">

[matauri]

Ole Tom has pretty much answered your redirection question.

In regards to :
1. How long will the old pages be indexed in the search engines and how long will it take to replace themor for them to be removed etc.?

I have only recently switched servers & domain names myself. My new site had replaced my old one within 4 weeks, and had even increased in ranking & position. So, it could be as little as 4 weeks. I was surprised that mine was changed as fast with better results (tho current one is optimized better).

I did, however, have a redirection in place from old site.



Cindy