HTTP redirection

[JWJ]

When I was forced to move my web site to a new location some time ago, I added links on all of the pages in my old site, to the new versions in the new site. In my naivety I thought that was enough to bring the viewing public to the right place. Over time, many search engines have picked up on the new site, however, some major ones (like MSN for instance) have not, and keep displaying the old site in the search results.

Reading the MSN webmaster pages I can now see that I should have inserted a "HTTP Redirection code" indicating the fact that my site has been moved permanently. I have no idea how to do this. Is this a line of code in a robots.txt file (which I don't have either)?

This numbskull would be grateful for any and all advice and guidance.
Thank you
John

Old site http://jwj.members.beeb.net
New site http://members.aol.com/JWJarts

[JWJ]

Thanks for that.

Since posting I've also discovered how to redirect using a .htaccess file. I'm probably not getting it absolutely correct because I appear to need a line for each page of the site. I'm sure there must be a more elegant way, but since I only have a small site that's no real hardship. The main issue is, will search engines also follow the .htaccess redirection, or is that what I need the HTML code for?

Regards
John

[Arne]

Thanks for that.

Since posting I've also discovered how to redirect using a .htaccess file. I'm probably not getting it absolutely correct because I appear to need a line for each page of the site. I'm sure there must be a more elegant way, but since I only have a small site that's no real hardship. The main issue is, will search engines also follow the .htaccess redirection, or is that what I need the HTML code for?

The http-equiv=refresh is a bad solution for most cases, and certanly for pages that are moved to a new location. The .htaccess is better, because the search engines follows it and index the new URL insted of the old.

[JWJ]

Thanks Arne ... that's what I wanted first and foremost, the search engines. Now all I've got to do is wait for the blighters to get me indexed. :)

John

[JWJ]

Further to my last, I can report the following very successful improvement in page ranking. On Oct 13th I ran two searches on MSN that would find my site. One ranked my old site at 215th and the other at 85th.

Then, to my old site, I added a robots.txt file granting allow to all engines and a .htaccess file redirecting to my new site. Today, Oct 15th, the same two searches have my old site in 53rd and 13th places respectively.

I can't pretend to understand why ... but who cares? :D

John