Lulu Posted April 30, 2013 Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 (edited) 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falkencreative Posted April 30, 2013 Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 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) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lulu Posted April 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falkencreative Posted April 30, 2013 Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 This has a pretty good overview: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2007/03/how-to-properly-implement-a-301-redirect/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lulu Posted April 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 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! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falkencreative Posted April 30, 2013 Report Share Posted April 30, 2013 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/$1 [R=301,L] With the samples above, you don't need to include the old site URL anywhere -- the server will automatically figure it out. And the .htaccess file needs to go in the root of your old domain's hosting. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1945568/htaccess-redirect-all-pages-to-new-domain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lulu Posted May 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2013 Yes, you can have multiple statements in a .htaccess file. I'm assuming you have your server set up to support .htaccess files? If not, see the "How to do a 301 redirect using a Windows server" in the link. If you are wanting to redirect all visitors from anywhere on the old site to the home page of the new site, you'd use: RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^(.*)$ 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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