Can anyone help with redirect using 301s

**LynXzyx** · 10-12-2009, 07:04 AM

Hi,
I'm brand new to this forum and am a webmaster only out of necessity for my business. I do get way out of my depth and end up very confused.
Every time I update my site is a learning curve for me and I am doing my best, but do need advise more often than not.

I posted this question in the Google Help Forum but no one has answered. It's so important I am quite desperate to find a solution so I thought I would post it here hoping for some guidance. I must say that every cloud has a silver lining and by Google Help Forum failing to answer my post has led me to this forum where I will have a browse and see if I can absorb some knowledge from you all.

Here was my question. Please ask if anything isn't clear or please redirect me if I have posted this in the wrong place.

Hi,
I hope someone can help me.
I have had my business site uploaded for around ten years now.
Until June this year the site was loaded in Orange webspace at www.marlinrosettes.fsbusiness.co.uk
For that time I had the domain www.marlinrosettes.co.uk
In June I terminated my contract with Freezone who hosted that site.
I then built a new site www.marlinrosettes.com and registered with Just Host as my new host. The domain for www.marlinrosettes.com is the same. (.com not .co.uk)

Until now I have I have used an ‘enter’ home page on www.marlinrosettes.fsbusiness.co.uk to link directly into the new site at www.marlinrosettes .com but have been advised on this forum that it is bad practice to do so and I need to use a 301 redirect.
I have now uploaded the entire ‘duplicate’ site onto my webspace at www.marlinrosettes.fsbusiness.co.uk but am at a loss as to how I can redirect.
I cannot redirect www.marlinrosettes.fsbusiness.co.uk site in cPanel as it is not hosted there (in fact it is not hosted anywhere in is purely uploaded in orange webspace)
I have tried in Google tools to change address but am getting a message telling me ‘Setting is restricted to root level domains only’.
I am getting in such a muddle here. Can anyone advise me the best way I can go about this.

**tripy** · 10-12-2009, 07:44 AM

Does your old site is on an php enabled server ?
If yes, you can achieve a 301 with this in the index page of your old site:

PHP Code:


			
<?
header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
header( "Location: http://www.marlinrosettes.com" ); 
exit();
?>

**LynXzyx** · 10-12-2009, 10:26 AM

Thanks Tripy
I give that a try. I'm not sure if it is on a php enabled server but I'll try it and know it was if it works.

**LynXzyx** · 10-14-2009, 12:35 PM

I put the code in but it didn't work. Sorry to be such a novice but I think I have to have a php index page to do that and I'm not sure how to do that.

Someone suggested a Meta refresh. I've 'googled' what it means and wondered if it could be an option.
Does anyone know any reasons why or why-not this might be a good idea. Does Google penalise these?
If it's a good idea could anyone let me know how I go about a Meta Refresh.

**chrishirst** · 10-14-2009, 12:37 PM

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk/article...ther-redirect/

**tripy** · 10-14-2009, 03:00 PM

You cannot do 301 redirects with meta refresh.
The meta refresh is an old way to redirect a browser that reach a page to another one, but for the search engines, a page that implements a meta-refresh is just a normal page, with a link to another site.

You need to use a server side language to do a 301.
Php, asp, coldfusion, python, perl, anything but it must be done at the server level, not at the browser level.

Searching a bit, I've found this page, that list several languages and options to make a 301 redirect:
http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php