I have just switched from our old site to the revised lastest edition. My google custom search bar comes up with all the old files. I have "zipped" them all, so when you click on the google link our 404 file not found message comes up. The google site search also does not index any of the new pages and documents. What should I do?
Thanks in advance.
Matt

Get Google index the new pages, a Google "custom search" only shows URIs that Google have indexed.

Thanks Chris. So the old files will eventually be retired/removed from the Google index?

If you have them redirected, yes they will.

Redirected? I'm going to need to do homework. Sorry to have bothered you. Please give me some links to study.

http://www.highrankings.com/forum/in...p?showforum=61

FYI. I redesigned the website with a new format, images, text and functionality, then switched over to this new folder from the old folder on the same domain using .htaccess DirectoryIndex newindex.html. Then I (foolishly) zipped the old folder, and deleted the unzipped version, so visitors wouldn't accidentally surf the wrong folder. Considering this, what is the best way to set up a redirect? The old folder contains hundreds of files, html, php, pdf .js etc. and images. And now they are all zipped away.
Thanks

.htaccess will probably be the easiest, and redirect the old URLs to the new URL.

Chris,
Thanks, working on it. How do i "Kill" pages? That is tell google I no longer want them recognized or indexed. Pages I no longer will use.

Originally Posted by matt w

Chris,
Thanks, working on it. How do i "Kill" pages? That is tell google I no longer want them recognized or indexed. Pages I no longer will use.

1. use robots.txt
2. use no index meta tag
3. use Google URL removal tool

If you own the site

1. Verify your ownership of the site in Webmaster Tools.
2. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want.
3. On the Dashboard, click Site configuration in the left-hand navigation.
4. Click Crawler access, and then click Remove URL.
5. Click New removal request.
6. Type the URL of the page you want removed from search results (not the Google search results URL or cached page URL), and then click Continue. How to find the right URL. Note that the URL is case-sensitive—you will need to submit the URL using exactly the same characters and the same capitalization that the site uses.
7. Click Remove page from search results and cache.
8. Select the checkbox to confirm that you have completed the requirements listed in this article, and then click Submit Request.

(Source: http://www.google.com/support/webmas...&answer=164734 )

except I'm not Chris...but I can be ... i guess

As Shey says a noindex value on the robots meta element and robots.txt will stop the contents of the page from being indexed, HOWEVER this does have another problem where the URIs will still exist in the index as "PiPs" (Partially Indexed Pages) where only URL appears as the SERP title.

Using the Google removal will remove the URLs from the index for at least 90 days, however if links still exist to the pages and the URLs do not respond with a 404 they may return as PiPs.

By far the quickest and surest way to remove URLs is to permanently redirect them.

Thanks Chris and Shey!