Is a 301 redirect the solution?

[nexweb550]

Here is my problem. My test website domain was indexed by Yahoo for our targeted keywords and now it is creating top 10 rankings for those keywords.(I forgot to put a robots.txt file up)

The only problem is I want my company's actual website domain that I took live this week to show up in Yahoo's rankings rather than the test domain.

What is the best way to transfer these rankings to the new domain and remove the test domain from Yahoo's index?

As an added note, the site is run with a content management system(Typo3)

Thanks for your help.

[bhartzer]

The best way to handle it is to set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from your test domain to your main domain name. The sooner the better.

If you want a specific explanation of how Yahoo! handles redirects, then take a look at the article I've written about How Yahoo! Handles Redirect.

[JuniorOnline]

Hiya,

yes - the 301 redirects are the solution.. just make sure you do not use the 302 re-direction..otherwise your websites will go down in terms of ranking...


Good Luck

[bhartzer]

otherwise your websites will go down in terms of ranking

Well, not necessarily. There is actually a reason why you would want to use a 302 redirect. However, generally speaking, you will always want to use a 301 Permanent Redirect.

If you want to get around the aging delay, you might consider using a 302 Temporarily Moved redirect, and Scottie Clairborne has a good article here about it. That article has to do with the fact that you should use a 302-redirect temporarily until the aging delay is over.