I will talk about the best and worst ways to redirect pages in this article.
Why would you want to use page forwarding, and what exactly is it for?
Let's say, for whatever reason, you change the name of a page on your website. You may have made the decision to completely change your naming convention, reorganize your website, and need to move pages to different folders, or simply realized that you are missing important keywords.
Let's talk more about the issue of keywords as they affect your ranking in search engines.
Let's say you named the page in the question page1.htm and it's about custom USB drives. Then, I read some SEO (search engine optimization) articles and found that some search engines use words in the file name as search keywords. Take a look at the results next time you use Google. Most of them will have words in the actual file name written in bold in the URL section, indicating a keyword match. If you gave your USB drives page a name like custom_usb_drives.htm instead, that would definitely help.
You've just created a bunch of problems for yourself, your users, and your site in search engine results by renaming your page.
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Connection problems:
Every link on your website should point to the new page name. It shouldn't be a big deal if your website is small, but if it's big, you'll make mistakes, often forgetting some links. Visitors will encounter a “404 Page Not Found” error when they click on links as a result, robots (aka crawlers or spiders) will avoid you, and so on. Additionally, people will receive a "404 Page Not Found error" if they rely heavily on search engine traffic.
Taking the previous example as an example, the major search engines have been indexing your page1.htm for a long period of time. Your page appears on the first screen of search results when someone types "custom USB drives" into the search engine box. That's great, but if someone clicks on the link, they'll be directed to page1.htm instead of custom_usb_drives.htm because the search engine is indexing the first page. The name of your new page will be added to the search engine indexes over time, sometimes for months.
Missing PageRank issues (PR):
Each webpage receives PageRank (PR) using a proprietary algorithm developed by Google. PR is a number ranging from one to ten, with ten representing the ideal level of interest and popularity. There are a lot of things that affect PR, but Link Popularity is one of the most important. Link popularity shows how many sites link to your page as "quality" or "relevant". Without going into too much detail, it becomes increasingly difficult and time-consuming to achieve high PR for your pages, especially if you don't have a truly original website with exceptional content that is in great demand. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a good PR page if you're running a business in a competitive market (like selling custom-branded USB drives, as in our example).
When the page is renamed and the previous name is deleted, the PR of the page is also deleted. Your new page will be seen as a completely new page with no PR.
What can he do?
I'll start by listing some of the techniques uninitiated people follow.
Not a good first choice: duplicate material.
Perhaps the first thought that comes to your mind is: So why not just repeat the page and let nature do its thing? In other words, you will have two identical pages: custom_usb_drives.htm and page1.htm. You will have plenty of time to update all links as a result, and eventually, the new page will be indexed by search engines.
Because search engines "think" that you are trying to defraud them by using "duplicate content", this solution will not work.
Not a good second option: custom error message
You can design your own error page. However, the file will appear to not exist, and as a result, you will lose rankings on a subsequent search engine refresh. As mentioned earlier, it may take some time for a page with the new name to be indexed and appear in people's searches. In addition, the fact that your website visitors are now having to sift through your content to find the information they are looking for will make them angry.
Not a good option for Solution 3: Redirect meta in HTML.
You can use a technique known as "meta refresh" on a custom or blank page with the link to the name of the old page (in our example, page1.htm) to the new page. Redirection can occur immediately or after a predetermined period of time has passed. The advantage of a delayed redirect is that you can include an additional message, such as "Please be aware that the page you are looking for has been relocated....etc"...etc. You will be automatically redirected to the new site. This method was probably the most popular in the past.
Be aware that there are Java Script techniques that achieve similar results without going into the details of a Meta redirect, which is basically the META tag added to the HEADER section.
This is bad because spammers often use it to trick search engines, so it should be avoided unless the page is in an unindexed (aka spiced or crawled) area of your website. Spammers who target search engines create pages that are optimized for specific keywords and phrases but usually don't contain any actual content. The page is then captured by some search engine; However, when a visitor clicks on a search engine entry, they are redirected to another website, often one that has nothing to do with the original website. This is detected by the filters in most search engines. Using this method to mislead search engines will eventually lead to the site being penalized or banned by major players like Google.
The most effective, visitor-friendly, bot (spider and crawler), and SEO-friendly way to redirect websites hosted on Apache-based servers is 301 redirect, which is the recommended strategy. Check with your hosting provider if you are not sure.
Entering a set of commands into your .htaccess file constitutes a 301 redirect.
Your web server looks for an a.htaccess file every time a visitor, human or machine, requests a page online. Security, redirection, and error handling are just a few of the specific instructions found in the .htaccess file for specific requests.
The meaning of the code "301" is "permanently moved". After the symbol, space, and the new location or filename with the URL of the lost or renamed page are followed.
The first step is to locate the .htaccess file in the root directory of all your web pages. You can create a .htaccess file using Notepad or another similar program if it doesn't exist. When naming the file, remember to include the “.” in the filename at the beginning. There is no tail extension for this file.
You don't have to make any low-level changes to the .htaccess file itself because some hosting providers offer redirection services through their Control Panels. Instead, they offer an easy-to-use user interface for this. Find out from your hosting provider which method works best for your situation when doing a 301 redirect. The basic solution will be the next part of the article.
htaccess file that contains lines of code, you have to be very careful not to change any of those lines unless you know how the file works.
Create a new line following this example after scrolling past all the existing code and leaving a line space:
301 redirect. Simply. Upload the file back to your website, save it, and test it by typing the old address of the page you changed into. You should be taken to the new site quickly and smoothly.
Notes: Put the path from your website's top level to the page instead of "http://www" in the first part of the phrase. Also, be sure to leave a space between each of these things:
301 redirect (indicating that the page has been moved) /folder/page 1.htm (original folder path and filename) http://www.you.com/folder/custom_usb_drives.htm (new path and filename) same format is used For both renamed files and moved files.
The safest strategy for maintaining your rankings is a 301 redirect. The search engine bot will follow the rule in your .htaccess file and index the name of the new page each time the link or internal database tries to access the old page during subsequent indexing (crawls and spiders). The old filename and path will be removed and the new one will take their place on a subsequent update - again, this could take months. During the transition period, you may sometimes notice that the old and new file names and arrangements swap as things settle down. This is normal, so don't worry.
What if, as an alternative, your website is hosted on a Microsoft IIS server?
Do the following if you have access to the server: Right-click the file or folder that you want to redirect to Internet Services Manager. Select the radio option that says "Redirect to URL". Check "the exact URL entered above" and "Permanent redirect to this resource" on the redirect page. Select "Apply".
Ask your host to point you in the right direction if you don't have access to the server.
In conclusion, a 301 redirect is the best and most transparent way to rename and move files on your website while maintaining search engine rankings (for both human and machine users).
We are satisfied with that much. We wish you a wonderful day and fruitful marketing!.
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