META Http-Equiv for 301

[Nige]

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL? I can't send it from the
server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I still have access to the old site BTW.
--
Nige

Please replace YYYY with the current year
ille quis mortem cum maximus ludos, vincat

[Anne van Kesteren]

Nige wrote:

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL? I can't send it from the
server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I still have access to the old site BTW.

It is better to use .htaccess for this.

Redirect permanent http://oldsite http://newsite

--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://www.annevankesteren.nl/>

[Steve Pugh]

Nige <uY***@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL?
I don't think you can. The http-equiv attribute normally takes a http
header as it's value. But 301 is a status code not a header.
I can't send it from the server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I doubt it. The whole point of a 301 is to redirect to the new
location without downloading a file from the old location. Placing a
pseudo-301 inside a file that needs to be downloaded is very much
pointless.

Google would probably quite fairly say that if it can download the
file from the old URL then it will index the contents of that file
under that URL.

Will the old URL of your site being staying active indefintely or just
for a short period?

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Nige wrote:

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
Who do you suppose is going to react to this META?

It can't be the client: by the time that the client sees the meta, it
has already been sent status 200 and the contents of the page: it's
too late to change its mind, in the way that the HTTP protocol works.
Even if there was a way to express this in META.)

It _could_, in theory, be the server; but servers aren't usually set
up to parse the HTML and act upon any META they might find. (There
are good reasons for that: servers need a mechanism that works also
with other kinds of content, like .gif, .jpg, .ps and so on - and once
that general mechanism has been implemented, why bother with an extra
one that only works for HTML content?)

So the correct way to get a 301 status is by server configuration.
Which, most often, as others have said, would be done by some kind of
Redirect statement in the server configuration, .htaccess file etc.
I can't send it from the server,
Are you sure? You might be right, but you wouldn't be the first
person to have tried out .htaccess and found to their surprise (and in
some cases to the surprise of their server admin ;-) that it worked.
I still have access to the old site BTW.

That's obviously one pre-requisite ;-)

good luck

p.s meta...refresh is quite a different animal, but it's definitely
the wrong answer to your requirement, for several reasons. You're
absolutely right to want to do it with HTTP 301 status.

[Nige]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

It is better to use .htaccess for this.
Redirect permanent http://oldsite http://newsite

Could you explain further? How do I use this?
--
Nige

Please replace YYYY with the current year
ille quis mortem cum maximus ludos, vincat

[Peter Foti]

"Nige" <uY***@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:9g********************************@4ax.com...

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL? I can't send it from the
server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I still have access to the old site BTW.

If the page is ASP, you could do this:

<%
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.newdomain.com/newurl/"
Response.End
%>

I've never used this myself, and it obviously doesn't work if your page is
not an ASP page... but I thought I would post it just in case. :)
Regards,
Peter Foti

[Anne van Kesteren]

Nige wrote:

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

It is better to use .htaccess for this.
Redirect permanent http://oldsite http://newsite

Could you explain further? How do I use this?

1. Open notepad
2. Paste that line into it. Since you have access to your old directory,
you can paste it there and replace 'http://oldsite' with nothing.
'http://newsite' should point towards your new site without a / at the end.
3. Save the file as ".htaccess" (including " and ").
4. Load it up into your old site's root dir or whatever dir your website
used be in.
5. Check if this works. If not, someone will probably correct my mistakes.

--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://www.annevankesteren.nl/>

[D. Stussy]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Peter Foti wrote:

"Nige" <uY***@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:9g********************************@4ax.com...

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL? I can't send it from the
server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I still have access to the old site BTW.

If the page is ASP, you could do this:

<%
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.newdomain.com/newurl/"
Response.End
%>

I've never used this myself, and it obviously doesn't work if your page is
not an ASP page... but I thought I would post it just in case. :)

Similarly with PHP ( "header('Status: 301 xxx');" ), but I thought the idea was
to keep all processing (file access) to a minimum. The ASP and PHP approaches
would still require that a target file be read, while the .htaccess method
doesn't cause that ADDITIONAL access (.htaccess is read anyway, unless one can
put the redirection command directly into the main server configuration file -
or one included from there).

[John F. Carr]

In article <9g********************************@4ax.com>,
Nige <uY***@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I've got an old web site that comes up before its replacement in Google
listings. I've read the document on Google about sending a "301" code
from the server: http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/3.html#A2

Can anyone advise how to format a META Http-Equiv for a "301" code,
including how to tell Google the new URL? I can't send it from the
server, so I figure Http-Equiv is the next best.

I still have access to the old site BTW.

If the sites are identical a <base href="..."> element in the head
section of the HTML will suggest a preferred URL. Files in my www
directory in the shared filesystem at MIT are accessible by at least
three URLs. Adding BASE caused Google to list my preferred URL.

(This isn't the primarily or originally intended use of base but it
works.)

--
John Carr (jf*@mit.edu)