[WEB4LIB] Re: Redirecting a website

[Scritchfield, Larry]

Patricia,

I am sorry if I sounded curt or critical. The question was about how to
redirect the entire domain to a different domain. It seemed easiest to
accomplish that at the server level, rather than on a page-by-page basis. 

Molly also wanted seamless redirect, without users having to read a "click
here to continue" message. Using a delay does keep the back button
functional, though.

You are right, not everyone has root access to their server. I thought that
Molly in particular might not have root access (as a volunteer) so I let her
know that's what she'd need. Hopefully everyone has access to SOMEONE with
root access!

I'm in the midst of a redesign myself, and I'll be using meta redirects with
delay to redirect specific pages -- as opposed to redirecting the entire
domain.

The method of doing redirects varies according to the server software, so
it's not easy to give examples. (And never mind that abstruse W3C RFC! It
seems to be aimed at authors of user agents aka browsers.) Apache in
particular has lots of ways to redirect or do URL rewriting. So many that it
can be a black art involving regular expressions and so on.

Larry Scritchfield
lscritch at mail.co.washoe.nv.us
Internet Services Librarian                             (775) 327-8349
Washoe County Library System                      www.washoe.lib.nv.us

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Patricia F Anderson [SMTP:pfa at umich.edu]
> Sent:	Tuesday, January 28, 2003 4:42 PM
> To:	Scritchfield, Larry
> Cc:	Patricia F Anderson; Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	Re: [WEB4LIB] Re: Redirecting a website
> 
> Hi, Larry,
> 
> I am a big fan of Nielsen, and not-breaking-the-back button, which is why
> I always set a delay when I use this technique. With a delay, the user can
> click the back button twice, and still get back to where they were. The
> page you recommend gives the following URL as a source for instructions on
> how to implement the HTTP version of a redirect:
> 
> <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec10.3>
> 
> but this did not give an example of the real code. Not all of us have
> sysadmin access to our servers, so the meta tag is all I know of that I am
> sure I can do myself. Thanks for the information on the web page, though.
> If you have an example of the proper code, that would be even better!
> 
> Patricia Anderson, pfa at umich.edu
> 
> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Scritchfield, Larry wrote:
> 
> > Patricia,
> >
> > This is not a good technique. See
> >
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/reback
> >
> > Larry Scritchfield
> > lscritch at mail.co.washoe.nv.us
> > Internet Services Librarian                             (775) 327-8349
> > Washoe County Library System                      www.washoe.lib.nv.us
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From:	Patricia F Anderson [SMTP:pfa at umich.edu]
> > > Sent:	Tuesday, January 28, 2003 9:48 AM
> > > To:	Multiple recipients of list
> > > Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Re: Redirecting a website
> > >
> > > Most editing software will allow you to do a global find and replace
> > > throughout all files in a directory, or embedded subdirectories. I
> would
> > > find a line of text which is in all the files, and do a find and
> replace
> > > which includes the line of code for the meta tag to redirect. There
> are a
> > > zillion examples on the web. here was the top hit in Google for "meta
> tag
> > > redirect". Good luck! -- Patricia Anderson, pfa at umich.edu
> > >
> > > Using the Meta Tag "Refresh" to Redirect to a Different URL
> > > <http://www.indiana.edu/~wmhome/tool_guide_info/refresh_metatag.shtml>
> > >
> > > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 wl-mw at msln.net wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello All,
> > > >
> > > > Due to circumstances beyond my control, our website is now on a new
> > > server with
> > > > a new domain name. I need to redirect from the old site to the new
> one
> > > and am
> > > > wondering if there is a way to do it without having to edit over 250
> > > webpages.
> > > > I would also like users to simply _be_ redirected, seamlessly, not
> to
> > > have to
> > > > read a message telling them where to go to find the new site.
> Thanks.
> > > >
> > > > ~ Molly Wms.
> > > > --
> > > > Molly Williams
> > > > Volunteer, Waterboro Public Library, Maine
> > > > ** NEW URL: http://www.waterborolibrary.org/
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >