The Other Search Engines

**DaveTodd** · 08-17-2002, 05:22 AM

We changed our site design a few months ago, and have been re-indexed many times since. However, our old site files are still showing up and getting us numerous hits and visits from many people, they are even still generating sales.
We have a link to our new site at the top of each of the old pages, but would really like to be able to get everyone who comes in to go straight to the new main page so that we could rid ourselves of these pages as they take up a large amount of space on our server.
Is there a script that would direct all traffic comming to "unknown" pages to the homepage? does anyone have any ideas as to how we could rule out these pages while still retaining all the traffic?

regards,
Dave

**david** · 08-17-2002, 09:48 AM

Theres a few things you could do. It all depends on how your site is set up.

The easiest thing would be to make your 404 error page automatically redirect them to the main page of the site, then you could just delete the old pages. If the old site is in directories which are no longer used you could limit the 404 pages to these directories (using .htaccess) and then you could still have a standard 404 page.

Alternately, if the pages have the same names but are located somewhere else, you could use .htaccess to redirect them, or if they were slightly different mod_rewrite.

A third option would be to change all the old pages to meta refresh to the main page.

Just a few ideas for you there, you might be able to get one of them to do what you want. Let me know if you want any help with any of them.

**DaveTodd** · 08-17-2002, 10:09 AM

many thankx for the quick response dave.

we are definately considering and should soon be implimenting the customised 404 page idea. this we hope will not only provide us with a means to get rid of the old site pages, but will also help to drive more traffic toward us from misspelled links and old, outdated pages.

nice idea mate

thankx again for the quick response.