[WEB4LIB] Page redirects (was LibraryLand Index update)

[Avi Rappoport]

At 9:09 AM -0800 12/7/1999, Chiara Fox wrote:
>Hello Jerry and the rest of the List-
>
>I am in the process of updating our Web site and have redone the 
>structure of the files on the server.  The domain name is the same, 
>but many pages have been moved, renamed or removed.  I realized that 
>this is going to cause broken links, and I have tried to outline 
>steps to help minimize this (such as emailing Websites that link to 
>us with the updated URL, updating our 404 error page, etc.).
>
>I have created html redirects for our most popular pages, but I'm 
>still not sure that this is the best solution.  We use WebSTAR on a 
>Mac server and I know that I have a few options.  I could create 
>scripts that will redirect a request, use aliases to the new file, 
>or use the old html redirects.   Does anyone know if there are other 
>options for WebSTAR?

I'm a WebSTAR expert (I wrote the manual) and you have listed the 
options correctly.  How you go next depends on how much you want to 
preserve the old structure.   Aliases will do this automatically, and 
make everything behave as if it's all still in the same place, but 
they're easily broken, and they don't encourage bookmark and link 
changes.  Redirect files (using the Make Redirect command) will work 
for 90% of the browsers and robots, but they also don't encourage 
changes.  HTML Meta Refresh redirects with a pause are annoying 
enough that people will probably change their links.  Most browsers 
will handle them, but a lot of search indexing robots will index the 
redirect file itself.

Hope that helps,

Avi
________________________________________________________________
Avi Rappoport, Search Tools Maven: <mailto:avirr at lanminds.com>
Guide to Site Indexing and Local Search Engines: <http://www.searchtools.com>