— Moving (or Renaming) Web Pages —

Google, SEO, 301 Redirects and Using .htaccess Files

Want to keep your Google Page Rank when you update or redesign your website and maintain your existing page rank? The proper way to move a page is to create a Redirect 301 within an ".htaccess file."

We have all been to web pages which tell us that the page a moved, and they usually automatically redirect us to the new location. This is done by using a simple "Meta Redirect" such as:

 <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10;

	url=http://mynewsitelocation.com/">

The drawback of using a Meta Redirect is it will cause one to lose any existing page rank with the search engines; your page is "starting over" as far as Google is concerned — as if it never existed before.

Creating a 301 Redirect and Using .htaccess Files

To safely redirect web site traffic, we create an .htaccess file. The code "301 Redirect" is interpreted by browsers as "this page has moved permanently." When a visitor or browser spider requests a web page, your web server checks for an .htaccess file, which contains specific instructions for various requests, including redirection issues, and how to handle certain errors.

You can create one in Notepad, Simple Text or in Dreamweaver. If the file already exists on the server then just open it up. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it, skip a line and add to the bottom of the file the new location and/or name of the web page in this format:

 redirect 301 /page.html http://www.yoursite.com/directory/page.html

Note the spaces:

redirect 301 (SPACE)
a "/" followed by the page that has moved or been renamed (SPACE)
The new location and/or name

After uploading the new (or revised) .htaccess file to the server, test it by typing in the old address to the page you've changed. You should be immediately taken to the new location if the code was written correctly.

When the search engines spider your site again they will follow the rule you have created in your .htaccess file. During the next update, the old file name and path will be dropped and replaced with the new one. According to Google it will take 6-8 weeks to see the changes reflected on your pages.

Note: Beginning a file name with a "dot" (.htaccess) is reserved for the system and thus will result in an invisible file if place on your desktop, etc. The file is visible in the Dreamweaver directory and when accessing your server. Since some operating systems don't allow you to make a file without something before the "." you may need to save it as something.htaccess, some may even have to save it as htaccess.txt and change it once you've uploaded it.

Are Your Search Engine Page-Ranks Being Split?

How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs

The Problem: Search engines consider http://yourwebsite.com and http://www.yourwebsite.com as totally different websites. As a result, if your site has been linked to from other websites using a mix of the two URLs, you are effectively having the potential page rank and popularity resulting from the links split between the two addresses.

The Solution: Using a 301 redirect on the “non-www” version of the URL, which is essentially a “permanent” redirect in server talk, you can effectively consolidate all of your link popularity to a single URL. This consolidation will stop the "splitting" on your page ranking and increase your chances of obtaining and maintaining top ranking on your web pages.

In your .htaccess file, add the following lines of code (if you use Apache servers). Since Microsoft servers do not have an .htaccess file to alter, contact your hosting provider and request they make this change for you.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

— Freelance Professional Graphic Design & Custom Website Development | Graphic Artist Studio in Lee's Summit, Missouri —

Custom Website Design & Graphic Design Services Throughout Kansas City, Including:

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.