Permanent Redirection With Apache
The Apache web server also allows redirects. The easiest way, if your webmaster has configured Apache to allow it, is to create a file called .htaccess (note the dot in front!) in the folder containing the old page. Then add the following line to that file:
Redirect permanent /foldername/oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html
You can also redirect the entire folder and everything beneath it with this line:
Redirect permanent /foldername/ http://www.example.com/newpage.html
To redirect an entire site, use this line in the top-level web directory’s .htaccess file:
Redirect permanent / http://www.example.com/newpage.html
More Permanent Redirection Tricks
For more permanent redirection techniques, see the 301 Redirect – How to create Redirects page on webconfs.com.
Redirecting In HTML
If you don’t have the necessary access to use IIS or Apache redirects, you can still redirect the user in your HTML. Search engines might not figure out right away that the move is permanent and forget about the old page, but with care you can still give them a way to learn about the new page.
All you need is a <meta> HTML element, inside the <head> element of your old page, and a plain old <a> link in the <body> of the old page to please search engines. The following simple page redirects to another page:
<html>
<head>
<meta
http-equiv="Refresh"
content="5; url=http://www.example.com/newpage.html">
<title>Redirecting To Our New Page</title>
</head>
<body>
In a few seconds you will be redirected to our new page. If not,
just <a href="http://www.example.com/newpage.html">click on this
link to go to our new page.</a>
</body>
</html>
The key element here is <meta>, an element that can contain information that would normally be part of the HTTP response from the web server. By setting http-equiv to Refresh, we tell the browser we want to “refresh” the age. And by setting content to 5; url=..., we tell the browser that we want to go to the specified URL five seconds from now.
You’ll note that my simple page also provides an ordinary <a> link to the new page. That’s good practice because it allows users to find your new page if they have browsers or devices that reject or don’t undetstand <meta> – a rare situation today, but it could happen, perhaps with a simple cell phone browser. More importantly, it allows search engines to index your new page, even if they fail to understand that you are redirecting to it in a permanent way.
