How To Stop Search Engines Finding Defunct Website

[Lulu]

How do I stop search engines such as Google etc from retrieving a now defunct website in its searches? I own the domain name and have redirected it to a new site, but when I run a search using keywords, the old site comes top of the list.

 

Any advice much appreciated.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Lulu

[falkencreative]

A couple things:

 

-- You can use a 301 redirect (http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection, which tells Google that the URL has moved permanently. As Google recrawls the site, it should update its index.

 

-- You can also ask Google to remove specific pages or an entire website from its search results using Google Webmaster Tools (http://301redirects.net/redirect-old-domain-to-new-website.php)

[Lulu]

A couple things:

 

-- You can use a 301 redirect (http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection, which tells Google that the URL has moved permanently. As Google recrawls the site, it should update its index.

 

-- You can also ask Google to remove specific pages or an entire website from its search results using Google Webmaster Tools (http://301redirects.net/redirect-old-domain-to-new-website.php)

 

 

Thanks, Ben. I've had a look through the links you've given and the first option seems the best particularly (if I understand what I've just read correctly) as this method preserves the ranking on my new site rather than the defunct one. I definitely would like to redirect permanently. However, I don't quite understand what I need to do to achieve this! Can you help me?

[falkencreative]

This has a pretty good overview: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2007/03/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/

[Lulu]

This has a pretty good overview: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2007/03/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/

 

Thanks again, Ben. I think I'm currently running on a windows server. I have an .htaccess file in place on my current website to force a refresh. Can I add to this, or are you only allowed one 'command' so to speak?

 

If I can add to it, the link you gave suggests the following to redirect from one domain to another which is what I think I need as I want to redirect anyone finding links to the defunct site on the internet to my new site:

 

RedirectPermanent / http://www.new-domain.com/

 

I'm not entirely clear on how to 'word' the redirect though - where does the defunct site address go?! Sorry, this is probably very obvious and I'm missing the point!

[falkencreative]

Yes, you can have multiple statements in a .htaccess file. I'm assuming you have your server set up to support .htaccess files? If not, see the "How to do a 301 redirect using a Windows server" in the link.

 

If you are wanting to redirect all visitors from anywhere on the old site to the home page of the new site, you'd use:

 

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/ [R=301]

 

If you want to redirect all visitors who visit a page on the old site to the same page on the new site, you'd use:

 

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

 

With the samples above, you don't need to include the old site URL anywhere -- the server will automatically figure it out. And the .htaccess file needs to go in the root of your old domain's hosting.

 

 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1945568/htaccess-redirect-all-pages-to-new-domain

[Lulu]

Yes, you can have multiple statements in a .htaccess file. I'm assuming you have your server set up to support .htaccess files? If not, see the "How to do a 301 redirect using a Windows server" in the link.

 

If you are wanting to redirect all visitors from anywhere on the old site to the home page of the new site, you'd use:

 

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/ [R=301]

 

If you want to redirect all visitors who visit a page on the old site to the same page on the new site, you'd use:

 

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

 

With the samples above, you don't need to include the old site URL anywhere -- the server will automatically figure it out. And the .htaccess file needs to go in the root of your old domain's hosting.

 

 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1945568/htaccess-redirect-all-pages-to-new-domain

 

Hi Ben, thanks for your post. I'm not sure if the server is set up to support .htaccess files, but will check. To be honest, I didn't realise I had to do that.

 

The old site no longer exists at all, but does appear on various articles online. Before I bought the domain name, I think clicking on the link went nowhere. I want it to go to my new site. Can I do this using one of the above statements?