Techie help required - re-directing from old site to new

[JasonG]

We have recently relaunched our website www.ktduk.com (http://www.ktduk.com)

However our old site is still appearing in SERPs. Therefore I set up a 404 page hoping that a user would be presented with it when clicking on the old links in Google results. However this is not happening, instead they are presented with a ColdFusion error. See this example http://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=E4C3A0EB-FBFD-4A81-D733CE4D9DA77083 (http://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=E4C3A0EB-FBFD-4A81-D733CE4D9DA77083)

Note: The original site was a ColdFusion site, the new version is PHP.

The company who designed/host our site claim that there is no way of setting up a re-direct and that these old links will eventually vanish from Google. It's now been 2-3 weeks and they are still there.

Has anyone else experienced this problem when migrating from a ColdFusion system to PHP?

How long should I expect these old links to appear for in Google?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jason G

[wood1e2]

What type of server is the old site hosted on? Can you not just place a Php/.asp/ColdFusion(presumably) forward on the onsite?

[JackieC]

If you can't change the forwarding to suit, can you still get access to your old site? If so, go into every page on the old site and either have a re-direct from each page or have a "we have re-designed this whole site - click here and you will be taken straight to it" button.

[awebapart.com]

Note: The original site was a ColdFusion site, the new version is PHP.

The company who designed/host our site claim that there is no way of setting up a re-direct and that these old links will eventually vanish from Google. It's now been 2-3 weeks and they are still there.
You have a lot of deep inbound links, links from other sites pointing to specific areas in your old site (not your home page domainname/ ), around 60 links. You can check this on www.yahoo.co.uk (http://www.yahoo.co.uk) using the link:yourdomain command. As an example you have an inbound link from this external site (http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/FleetSuppliers/?c=24) going to a page on your old site that doesn't exist anymore.

Because of this you really shouldn't be just trying to solve a temporary missing page error problem using page missing 404 pages. Even if you solve this, you will still have the more permanent problem of losing the SEO benefit of all those inbound links, and this might seriously affect your rankings in the search engines once google indexes your new site (if you did have good rankings with the old site).

So you need to solve at least the inbound link problem with 301 permanent redirects, and you or your ecommerce suppliers should be able to do this, either with .htaccess mod rewrite commands or kicking in or modifying other mod rewrite routines. If you cannot do this then your new system/supplier was not an appropriate choice for a pain free migration to another system.

[Sunburn]

Agreed, a 301 permanent redirect is the best way forward on this, however, 3 weeks late its going to be a case of damage limitation more than anything else (assuming you old site serp's where good)

[JasonG]

What type of server is the old site hosted on? Can you not just place a Php/.asp/ColdFusion(presumably) forward on the onsite?

Thank you all so much for your help.

The old site was on a linux server.

I have just managed to get redirects commands in the .htaccess to work. Therefore when anyone clicks on an old link such as this http://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=E4C3A0EB-FBFD-4A81-D733CE4D9DA77083 (http://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=E4C3A0EB-FBFD-4A81-D733CE4D9DA77083) they will now be redirected to our new home page.

[JasonG]

you have an inbound link from this external site (http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/FleetSuppliers/?c=24) going to a page on your old site that doesn't exist anymore.


I have now resolved that with a redirect in the .htaccess. I'll see what other inbound links we have that also need redirecting. Is this the best way to do it? Is it ok to have many redirects within the .htaccess?

Regards

Jason G

[nass]

I have now resolved that with a redirect in the .htaccess. I'll see what other inbound links we have that also need redirecting. Is this the best way to do it? Is it ok to have many redirects within the .htaccess?

Regards

Jason G

You can have as many as you like. If I were you I'd go look on yahoo, figure out all the important backlinks to the old site, then redirect those to the new site. Then go through the old site hierarchy using google site:yourDomainName/* and redirect all the pages in that list to the new site.

[awebapart.com]

I have now resolved that with a redirect in the .htaccess.
Good. Although currently you have a temporary 302 redirect in place (you can check this with this header checker tool (http://news.stepforth.com/seo-tools/http-header-checker.php)), a 301 permanent redirect might be better.

Is this the best way to do it? Is it ok to have many redirects within the .htaccess?
If it is the only way you can do it then yes it is the best way of doing it. .htaccess files can be quite large. For large numbers of redirects it might be better to handle this within mod-rewrite executed code within PHP, but this is a more advanced technique, and it might conflict with your ecommerce system's existing mod-rewrite handling code.

[Steve2507]

You can have as many as you like. If I were you I'd go look on yahoo, figure out all the important backlinks to the old site, then redirect those to the new site. Then go through the old site hierarchy using google site:yourDomainName/* and redirect all the pages in that list to the new site.
When redirecting them don't redirect them all to the homepage of your new site. Instead redirect them to the corresponding page of the new site. More work is involved but it will create happier visitors.

[JasonG]

When redirecting them don't redirect them all to the homepage of your new site. Instead redirect them to the corresponding page of the new site. More work is involved but it will create happier visitors.

Thanks again everyone.

I am currently in the process of setting up these individual redirects. In doing so, will the old links eventually vanish from SERP's, or because of the redirects will they again look 'live' to Google, Yahoo etc?

Jason G

[awebapart.com]

I am currently in the process of setting up these individual redirects. In doing so, will the old links eventually vanish from SERP's, or because of the redirects will they again look 'live' to Google, Yahoo etc?
If they are permanent 301 redirects, the old URLs should eventually vanish from SERPs.

[JasonG]

When redirecting them don't redirect them all to the homepage of your new site. Instead redirect them to the corresponding page of the new site. More work is involved but it will create happier visitors.

Argh no, it's not working. I've tested a redirect with a link to an old product https://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C (https://www.ktduk.com/site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C) using:

redirect /site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C http://www.ktduk.com/product/blaupunkt_hamburg_mp68_bluetooth_car_stereo_with_m p3_playback_and_usb/ (http://www.ktduk.com/product/blaupunkt_hamburg_mp68_bluetooth_car_stereo_with_m p3_playback_and_usb/)

However I am still getting a ColdFusion error stating 'File not found: /site/product.cfm'. I'm assuming it due to ColdFusion serving up our items dynamically?

I think I'll just have to redirect all /site/product.cfm to the new home page?

Unless 301 redirects would be a better option? However I think I would need access to the old ColdFusion site? It doesn't exist any more.

Jason G

[awebapart.com]

It looks like the mod-rewrite handling code of your ecommerce system is kicking in for those pages, rather than any redirect code you are setting up in .htaccess. BTW if you are redirecting, the Redirect command just does a temporary 302 redirect whereas the RedirectPermanent command does a permanent 301 redirect, but this wont make any difference if your ecommerce system's mod-rewrite handling code is kicking in first (code used to give your new system urls like domainname/department/towbars_and_accessories ). The other alternative is to set up redirects using the RewriteRule commands, but again this might conflict with your ecommerce system's mod-rewrite handling code.

You really need to speak to your ecommerce system supplier.

You don't really need access to the old site, since the old site is currently in the google cache, use the site: command (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=100&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=www.ktduk.com&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images) to work out what the old urls were.

[awebapart.com]

this wont make any difference if your ecommerce system's mod-rewrite handling code is kicking in first (code used to give your new system urls like domainname/department/towbars_and_accessories )...

You really need to speak to your ecommerce system supplier.
I've just taken a close look at your old system in the google cache, and I've just realised you are migrating from an old version of Trading Eye, the one developed in Coldfusion, to the new version of TradingEye, the one developed in PHP. You really shouldn't be having all these problems migrating to a newer system provided by the same supplier!

I therefore recommend again that you speak to your ecommerce supplier, since there might be some backwards compatibility mode built in!

Tradingeye (http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6506) originally developed their system in ColdFusion but decided around 2006 to develop the new version of the system in PHP.

[JasonG]

if you are redirecting, the Redirect command just does a temporary 302 redirect whereas the RedirectPermanent command does a permanent 301 redirect

Thanks, I have updated my redirects to Permanent redirects. Does this mean that the search engines will eventually recognise that the old web site does not exist, and therefore stop displaying the old URL's in their results?

Jason G

[awebapart.com]

Thanks, I have updated my redirects to Permanent redirects. Does this mean that the search engines will eventually recognise that the old web site does not exist, and therefore stop displaying the old URL's in their results?
It should do where permanent redirects are in place. It looks like you still have the issues you mentioned earlier with your old product pages (e.g. /site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C)

[JasonG]

It should do where permanent redirects are in place. It looks like you still have the issues you mentioned earlier with your old product pages (e.g. /site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C)

Yes, I can't get the redirects from specific products such as /site/product.cfm?id=76F80E60-C283-1E02-3D4547ECBC6E829C to work. I continue to get the ColdFusion error 'File not found: /site/product.cfm' if I try to redirect that (and similar) URL. Therefore I have set up redirects for /site/product.cfm to point at our 404 page instead.

Jason G