Remove old web pages

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

CFDSNSAM

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

ASKER

finding the links to the page is the hard part
back when i used frontpage you could click a page and it would show inbound and outbound links.
Wish my server supported it that would make it a lot easier.
i might do a 301 to please google

Apart from the fact that Google et al do not penalize sites for broken links there is absolute no point redirecting from a page you don't want people to see - just change or remove the page in the first place.
So the accepted answer is completely wrong.

CFDSNSAM

As he stated, finding the links is the hard part, so creating a redirect (whether or not Google, etc penalize for broken links) keeps it looking more professional. This also keeps people from wondering why the link does not work.

@gary - you have anything to back that up?

according to this article in March of this year, it does affect seo:

http://www.blizzardpress.com/404-errors-and-seo-rankings/

also, as CFDSNSAM stated, broken links look unprofessional and should not be on a site, poor user experience. so your conclusion is completely wrong...

isnoend2001 - you may find this site useful for trying to find broken links on your site. keep in mind you can only run it 5 times a day:

http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/google-sitemap-generator/

1000's of broken links and images in one website are not the same as one or two broken links - and I suggested just change or remove the page.

There is no point doing a 301 redirect from a page that will eventually not exist to a page that will also cease to exist, there is absolutely no SEO issue - just change the page.

ASKER

thanks
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-google-does-not-penalize-for-broken-html-172721

I do not understand how the 301 works
The only way i can see it working is to put it on the page for a period of time before removing it.
If that the case leave the page for how long ?

so if a user has bookmarked a page that is going to be removed, and when they go to that bookmark and gets a page doesnt exist, that's ok to you? guess we just have different approaches then to a good user experience...

if you use the meta refresh method, then you need to leave the page there. you could also use the url rewrite functionality of iis, assuming you have iis7 or higher. then you could remove the page immediately and any request of the page would be handled at the web server level.

ASKER

I will have to find out if i have iis7 rewrite functionality of iis
I am trying to get my host to put frontpage back on so i can determine page links
found this old photo made with fronpage:

Forget 301 redirects, waste of time

Use http://www.iwebtool.com/link_extractor to find links to the page/s

@ c l
Ever used the MS site?

ASKER

thanks, got frontpage to work locally
i used frontpage for years some of its features i miss eg;
Open the online and local sites drag files between them.
draw a table with a pencil more
the link checker more...
It wrote crummy html
Found that validating the code was next to impossible
now i use coffee cup html editor and it works ok
wish i could preview using asp include files