Changing Your URL
From PhotoblogsWiki
When you decide to create a website, it is best to design it so that you'll never have to change your URL in the future. When you change your URL, you not only risk creating confusion for your visitors, but this also affects how search engines, feed readers, and other programs access your site. It's best if you can avoid changing your URL, but, of course, that's not always possible... So, if you have to change your URL, here are some things to consider.
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Don't Use Javascript or Meta Tags
If you've installed a bit of Javascript onto your website to bounce users to another URL, it might look like the redirect is working... Unfortunately, though, many search engines, robots, and spiders can't read Javascript. So, even though your web browser might automatically redirect to the new page, many other services won't see the redirect at all.
It's also common for people to use a <meta> tag to create a redirect. For the same reasons as above, it's best to avoid using meta redirects. Many web services simply won't check for this. The W3C also talks about additional reasons to avoid this method.
Do Use HTTP Redirects
If you're going to create a redirect, it's best to have your web server send out a special standard message that officially tells everyone the new URL. Any of the following methods should work depending on your server setup.
Using .htaccess
If you have an Apache web server, you can use an .htaccess file. Just create a file called ".htaccess" and put it in the home directory of your website. Inside that file, you should have this line of code:
Redirect /old-local-file.html http://www.example.com/new-url/
Just replace the "old-local-file.html" text to point to the file on your server that you need to redirect and replace the "http://www.example.com/new-url/" to point to the new URL.
Using PHP
If you have PHP installed on your webserver, you can replace the content of the old page with this code:
<?php
header("location: http://www.example.com/new-url/");
?>
Other Methods
There are links to additional redirect methods near the bottom of the W3C Quality Assurance page called Use standard redirects: don't break the back button! (Look for a section called "How to do redirects with your server".)
Updating Your URL in Photoblogs.org
Once you've created the redirect, visit the Photoblogs.org Add/Update page and enter the old URL. Photoblogs.org should automatically find your redirect and update your profile.
But what if I don't want to put a redirect on the old URL?
No problem! You can just do it temporarily.
The most common reason people don't want to use a redirect is because they want to use the old URL for a different purpose. For example, they may want to move from a previous URL that looks like... http://www.example.com/ ...to a URL that looks like... http://www.example.com/photoblog/ ...in order to use their homepage for something new.
No matter what the reason, you can create a temporary redirect to handle your URL change...
Temporary Redirects
Just follow these steps and you'll be able to change your URL without using a permanent redirect.
- Put the redirect in place.
- Ping your website using the Photoblogs.org Add/Update page.
- Check to make sure that your URL has been updated. (In 99.9% of the cases this works like a charm.)
- Remove the redirect so that your old URL still works.
- Celebrate!
