Surely setting up a redirect isn't this hard is it?

I have registered a new domain and I would like to have Google completely ignore my old address while indexing the new address.
The new site content has been moved to a subdirectory of the root and my new domain pointde to this via my host.

Is there some code I can add to redirect users to the new site and to ensure Google completely ignores my old Index Page?

I currently have a Meta redirect instead of the .htaccess.

Cheers
AS

You have to use a 301 redirect to do this properly. A JavaScript redirect is dangerous.

It looks like the redirect should work, but perhaps only when you actually include the index.htm page in the URL. I use a slightly different method that always works for me. Try this:

redirect 301 / http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/index.htm

The difference is that I am not specifying the page name, which should redirect everything in the root directory.

If you are still having problems, try checking it with a header checker tool to verify that the 301 status code is being generated.

http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bi ... rcheck.cgi

You could also simply add this command into the header of the index page that you want redirected:




Of course be sure to replace "http://www.your_site_url.com" with the url you wish to redirect to.

Tech-Evangelist
When I do as you advise I get the very strange error message:-
"You don't have permission to access /index.htmindex.htmindex.htmindex.htmindex.htmindex.htmindex.htmindex..............etc"


FuNEnD3R
I've replaced the JS Re-direct with your recommendation and this works fine in the short term thanks. However I'm still led to believe that a .httaccess is the way to go.

You may use whichever you like best Parked/Addon Domain forwarding works good too.

The error message you are seeing is an indication that you have a permissions problem but it is--like you said--looping. It should not have anything to do with the 301 redirect. I have literally done hundreds of 301 redirects and never experienced a problem.

Are you sure you are using the 301 redirect on the old domain? It appears to me that you are using it on the new domain and it is redirecting to itself. Something has to be causing it to loop.

You can use domain forwarding, as FuNEnD3R pointed out, but domain forwarding with many registrars (such as GoDaddy) are 302 redirects that can get you into trouble with Google. In order to avoid problems it MUST be a 301 redirect.

My primary business is SEO and improper redirects are common problems.

T-E
As I understand it normally a 301 redirect would redirect to a different server. In this case the redirect is on the old domain which is that of hosting company Force9. It redirects to the new domain which is a different directory on the same server. I imagine this is quite rare for a 301 redirect and perhaps why a standard 301 will not work?