Hello,
our provider T-online will shut down his old servers at the end of the
year. Thus we have move to a new domain and want to redirect our old
site http://ukoehler.bei.t-online.de to -->
http://www.sights-and-culture.com.
The old server isn't an Apache server and does not support anything
like PHP, ASP, CGI.... Besides T-online doesn't give any support
regarding redirection. For this reason we seem not to have the
possiblity, to make a "301 redirect moved permanently".
For this reason we use several additional as well as modified META - tags
<title>301 moved permanently</title>
<meta http equiv=Refresh content="10; URL=http://www.sights-and-culture.com">
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="0">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
<meta name="Description" content="301 moved permanently">
<meta name="KeyWords" content="301 moved permanently">
and a hyperlink line, pointing to the new site.
However we are very afraid, that Google could consider the auto
redirect (refresh) spam and penalize the site and also, that we will
loose the PR of the old site.
Questions:
1. Is there any method, to get a 301 redirection for the old server?
2. What would be the best way, to perform the move without 301
redirect and how will Google handle the redirection and the page rank
PR then?
3. The link check (link:http....) shows the new site with all links
from the old site, but the new site cannot be found - in no way - what
does this mean?
thank you! |
Request for Question Clarification by
denco-ga
on
28 Sep 2004 11:18 PDT
Howdy globetrotter66-ga,
Will your new host do a DNS and server entry for you, so both domains will
point to the same web pages?
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher
|
Clarification of Question by
globetrotter66-ga
on
28 Sep 2004 14:06 PDT
hello denco-ga,
thanks for dealing with my problem. It's late evening here (11pm).
Have no idea, if the provider would do this. Will contact the support
tomorrow.
Unfortunately I don't know, what a DNS server entry is and how your
idea will work. Could you give me please a little help, to understand?
Thank you
Ursula
|
Request for Question Clarification by
denco-ga
on
28 Sep 2004 14:47 PDT
Howdy Ursula,
In basic terms, your provider's DNS (Domain Name System) server is used
to tell the world which server your web site is located. Your provider
might be able to make an entry on their DNS server to point your old site
to the same location as your new site. Then, on the server where your new
site is hosted, your provider might be able to make an entry to point the
old site name to your new site's web pages. This is usually called domain
aliasing.
If your provider could do this, it could be the best of all worlds as it
means no 301 redirects and your PR, etc. might be retained, at least for
the old domain name.
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher
|
Clarification of Question by
globetrotter66-ga
on
29 Sep 2004 07:42 PDT
Hi there,
thanks for teaching me. Don't know, if you could conclude, that the
old and new URLs are hosted by different providers. Thus I had to
contact both providers, right? There would obviously be a hard problem
with the old provider, who certainly won't support the move .... Just
imagine: when I check the server type, where the old site is (for
example at http://www.salescart.com/products1/netcraft.htm), I get the
information, that it is an Apache, but the support denies it and
doesn't give any information! Have no idea, what's going here.
However, before I contact anyone I'd like to clear up the difference
between the two methods - just for my information
a) HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently:
what I found:
"The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any
future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned
URIs."
If one uses a .htaccess file with redirect 301, "on the next
spidering, the search engine robot will obey the rule indicated in the
.htaccess file. The search engine spider doesn't actually read the
.htaccess file, but recognizes the response from the server as valid.
In the next update, the old file name and path *should* be dropped and
replaced with the new one" - that means, the spider learns, that he
has to go only to the new address and there would not be a problem, if
the old URL was deleted in the near future.
That's why a asked with my first question, if there is any method, to
get a 301 redirection for the old server.
b) When I use the "domain aliasing" as suggested,
- will the spider learn, where to go, or just be redirected as long as
the old server exists? I guess the latter.
- what will happen, when the old server is shut down at the end of the
year (including the alias)? This may lead to a bad end.
For my opinion the bad matter is, that the server soon will be no
more available and there is no way, to keep / move the old URL.
"http://ukoehler.bei.t-online.de" is not my domain, but obviously a
subdomain of the provider t-online, who has canceled this kind of
hosting.
Still favorising the domain aliasing or do you have another joker, who
would teach the spiders?
Looking forward to hearing from you
Ursula
|
Clarification of Question by
globetrotter66-ga
on
29 Sep 2004 07:50 PDT
addition to my last post:
of course have tested the old server - it doesn't have any features of
an Apache.....
|
Request for Question Clarification by
denco-ga
on
29 Sep 2004 13:44 PDT
Howdy Ursula,
Although I knew your old site is being handled by a different provider than
your new site, I didn't realize your old site is a subdomain. Apologies.
You are right in that your old site is on a Solaris/Apache server, but as
your test seems to support, it appears that .htaccess has not been set up on
that server. It also appears that your old provider is not able or willing
to set up .htaccess on that server. This means a "301" redirect is not going
to be possible, but you already knew that.
Your next step is talk to your old provider and see if they would do a domain
alias of your old domain. This can be done even with a subdomain. I suspect
that they will not be able or willing to do it, but you should call anyway.
Keep in mind that Google Answer Researchers (GAR) are independent of Google
in all ways, so we don't have any special insight into the Google PR process,
etc. That said, the Google search engine doesn't like duplicate content, so
I think your biggest problem might be that search engines might think your
current setup is just that.
I know you are not going to like it, but I would suggest you, after making
complete backups, and making sure all of the old content is up on the new
site, remove the old site completely. In the place of the index page, you
would place something such as:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<meta http-equiv=Refresh content="10; URL=http://www.sights-and-culture.com/">
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="0">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
<meta name="Description" content="301 moved permanently">
<meta name="KeyWords" content="301 moved permanently">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
<title>301 moved permanently</title>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
ukoehler.bei.t-online.de has moved to:
<BR><P>
<a href="http://www.sights-and-culture.com/">www.Sights-and-Culture.com</a>
<BR><P>
This page should refresh in 10 seconds.
<BR><P>
If the page doesn't refresh or if you don't want to wait, click the link above.
<BR><P>
Thanks!
</BODY>
</HTML>
You should also be able to edit your entries on Yahoo and dmoz.org, etc. to
reflect the change in your domain name. Otherwise, you should submit your
new domain name to Yahoo and dmoz.org, etc.
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher
|
Clarification of Question by
globetrotter66-ga
on
06 Oct 2004 07:22 PDT
hello denco-ga,
thank you for your hints, which however were unfortunately not really
helpful for me, as there were no new ideas for a solution.
The starting point was, that "...T-online doesn't give any support
regarding redirection. " All the same I've had some discussions with
the technical staff again, but they are definitively not willing to
give any support for the move.
Search engine submission and contacting link partners have been done
since August (as I wrote at the beginning - the site even has been
listed). The update at dmoz.org is a nightmare - my update request
dates back to August and I even joined their forum, to get a status
information, but until now my inquiry had no success....
The html/meta tags you suggest, have been used in the old site since
the middle of September (except the googlebot tag). Maybe you are
right and I should remove the old site, and create a new index.html
but haven't done it yet, as Google has listed the new site and
assigned the links from the old site to it (also the one of o
dmoz.org). The links however are pointing to the old URL - strange
matter, isn't it? That's certainly because of the refreshing meta
tags. These links will disappear, when the old site is deleted. Thus I
hope to get some links updated as long as the site has that links.
Nobody would link to the new site otherwise.
Well back to my request - is there nothing else I can do, for example
any tricky way to get a 301 redirect all the same, maybe with any
tricky java script or anything else?
kind regards and bye for now
Ursula
|
Request for Question Clarification by
denco-ga
on
06 Oct 2004 09:49 PDT
Howdy Ursula,
With things standing as they are, I think the only action available
to you is the meta refresh that you are currently doing.
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher
|
