SEO Tips to Avoid Critical Mistakes - Tip 3: Redirecting Old Links to New Pages
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Hyperlinks should also be allocated the relevant keywords relating to the site theme. This is why search engines like Yahoo will eventually find the site pages by using sophisticated crawlers. These crawlers will follow the links to and from other sites that share traffic. Link sharing plays a big part in traffic diversion and distribution of site visitors.
From time to time, however, there is the need to redirect traffic from old pages still showing on the search engines. Also, it may be necessary to move a site to a different server. The search engine crawlers need to know where the pages are located or they will find those outdated and dead links.
The method used to achieve this is server-side redirects. Check with your host to make sure that this can be done. If not, each of the pages in question will need to be edited to state that the page no longer exists. Then you need to put a link on the page that will take the visitor to the required content. It is a good idea to automatically redirect the page after about five seconds. It is a technique used ubiquitously on the web. Use this method only to redirect, by the way - not to use spoof style tactics! Here it is:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="5;URL=http://www.newpage.com/">
Simply replace the bolded URL with the site address being redirected to from the old page. Change the number 5 to whatever delay is required. Five seconds is a suggested timeout to allow for an apology for the dead or changed link that has been stumbled upon. Place a hyperlink there, too, so that the visitor can click it to redirect to that page. This is purely for convenience.
Next: So what are server-side redirects anyway? >>
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