Need to redirect from old site links (including search engine links) too new site

[swdynamic]

I have been using v1.3.9 successfully for years and has been ok as not using the checkout function pages directly. However, staying with the times and all, have upgraded too V1.5.1 and using pica-flor azul winchester black template. My issue is that the original site / orig version I have spent countless time and effort to get it to pull top 3-5 search results from most search engines for the brands and products I offer. Now that I am needing too open the new site... I need to find a way that the old site is still visible as it is currently to the search engines and either have a pop up on page load too redirect the clients too the new site or have it redirect automatically even if clicked through the search engine findings and listings.

Problem is that I do not want the old site too be useable on the client side, only redirect or popup with information for redirect to new site. atleast until I can find the time too edit all of the meta and SEO info.

Thanks in Advance

[kobra]

Will the old site have a different domain name than the new site??

[RodG]

However, staying with the times and all, have upgraded too V1.5.1

Still behind the times.. V1.5.4 is the current release. V1.5.1 is now almost 3 years old.

My issue is that the original site / orig version I have spent countless time and effort to get it to pull top 3-5 search results from most search engines for the brands and products I offer.

If the site is getting top rankings, it is due to the *content* of the site and little else, which means that as long as the new site has the same content, then it too will get top rankings... But, there is a caveat here to consider...

Now that I am needing too open the new site... I need to find a way that the old site is still visible as it is currently to the search engines

NO, DON'T DO THAT!!! It will have a NEGATIVE affect on rankings for both the old AND the new site on account of the fact that Google will see this as two different sites with the exact(?) same content competing with each other, effectively dividing the ranking power between them. You really don't want to compete with yourself to get top billing do you?

and either have a pop up on page load too redirect the clients too the new site or have it redirect automatically even if clicked through the search engine findings and listings.

Google will consider the site doing this as not being very *user* friendly. It will lose ranking power as a result.

Problem is that I do not want the old site too be useable on the client side, only redirect or popup with information for redirect to new site. atleast until I can find the time too edit all of the meta and SEO info.

Unless you have changed the site *content*, you should consider the upgraded site to be the same as the original site (just as Google will), even if the URL's have been changed in the process. A correctly performed update would/should retain all the same URL's/URI's as the original site though, which would make the perceived problem a moot point.

If the URL's/URI's *are* different as a result of the upgrade, and you have no wish or plans to do what is needed to make them what they originally were, then your best option is to simply 'mothball' the original site and let Google index the site with the new URL's. Yes, there will be a *short* period of time where some/many searches will direct people to a 'page not found' but these will soon be dropped from the listings and replaced by the links to the *new* site. The new site, having the same content as the old, will produce the same rankings as you currently have, because as I'm sure your read/heard time and time again that *content* is the secret to good rankings. The URL's are insignificant. The meta tags are no longer used, and almost all of the 'SEO enhancements' you've performed in the past are no longer relevant (at best), and some can actually cause a site to rank lower than it normally would, if you are lucky, and some of the really old 'SEO improvements' (eg: Keyword stuffing) can actually place a site into 'Google hell'. Worst case scenario.

If you like playing with fire, then by all means continue to play the game of Google Cat and Mouse. The Google developers work their butts of developing code that rank a site according to the value it provides to people, meanwhile the 'SEO experts' are working their butts off to find weaknesses in the Google algorithms to give a site an 'unfair' advantage over others. This is a never ending cycle, and the only real winners are the SEO experts that charge for their service, and continue to charge for many years as they have to keep changing tactics in order to keep a site afloat.

If/when you realise that Google's *aim* is to direct people to the most relevant site(s) for any given search query you'll then understand why content is king, and nothing else really matters.

Without knowing the actual URL changes between the old and new sites I can't really tell you what the best way would be to make it the 'new' URL's the same as the old ones were. It could be a matter of changing the DNS, it could be a matter of changing the documentRoot on the server, it could be a matter renaming the folders (and updating the configure.php files), or, as many (foolish?) people do, add some rewrite rules to redirect the old site to the new. This can get VERY MESSY if you are already rewriting the URL's on the original site, and an absolute nightmare should you ever need to do it a 3rd or forth time.

URL rewriting/redirects are ok for *specific* purposes, but other than those cases, should be avoided whenever possible.

A *new* store should *never* have a need sitewide redirects or rewrites. It is akin to renting and opening two brick 'n' mortor stores, advertising the address of just one of these stores, and placing a notice on the door of the advertised store telling the potential customers that the *real* store is somewhere else entirely. The fact that this is transparent (if done correctly) with an online store doesn't change the principles behind it.

You may take or ignore this as you see fit. If you ignore it, you will be one of the majorty. I'm happy with that though 'cos your store may be competing with one of my customers stores, which means I'm doing them a disservice in letting you know *my* 'secret' to their top rankings. LOL.

Cheers
RodG

[schoolboy]

If/when you realise that Google's *aim* is to direct people to the most relevant site(s) for any given search query you'll then understand why content is king, and nothing else really matters.

Absolutely true... Since 2006, Google has been trying very hard to convince website owners that by simply focusing on GOOD CONTENT, ENGAGING INTERACTION and EASE OF USE, websites will be ranked better.

Build and configure websites for PEOPLE - making sure to use safe, efficient and up-to-date code(s), making sure your site is accessible and easily usable on all devices, making sure the flow through the site is simple, intuitive and logical - and by making sure the content is engaging and relevant.

DON'T build your site for Google... and avoid 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of all so-called "SEO Experts". Nearly all of them don't know what they are doing.

[DivaVocals]

I was wondering if it's POSSIBLE that what the OP meant by "old site" is that he has changed his actual domain name or even the sub-folder that his site is installed on.. Either of which would change his store's URL (which means the actual "answer" to his original question is MUCH different than the answers offered here...)

If I am correct, the OP asks a legit question, and there is a solution (included in this post).. I have one client who is making a domain name change as the name of her business (and as such the domain name) are being modified.

(and before anyone asks the ridiculous question of WHY would one do that.. please note that large corporations make similar name changes ALL THE time..)

In 1991, the KFC name was officially adopted, although it was already widely known by that initialism.^[30]

So as a part of her upgrade, we ARE going to move to the NEW domain name while being careful to "RE-DIRECT" traffic going to the OLD domain name so that it properly redirects to the NEW domain name.. (and for the record she IS NOT using any re-writer module)

Years ago we made a similar change when upgrading her forum.. Her old forum pointed to http://hersite.com/forum, the upgrade required that the upgrade be installed in a new folder http://hersite/new_forum. We needed a redirect so that the old forum links pointed to the new forum URL. For example: http://hersite.com/forum/post1 would re-direct to http://hersite.com/new_forum/post1

Either way it required a redirect to facilitate this.. If this is the case, the following might be of use to the OP:

Source: http://whaaat.com/content/redirect-o...using-htaccess (modified from original to cover what I beleive matches the OPs Zen Cart setup..

Redirect old domain to new domain using .htaccess

Here's a quick snippet of code to keep around if you ever migrate from an old domain to a new domain.

Shown here is what I used to move yourdomain.com/oldstore to yourdomain.com/newstore:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com/oldstore$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com/oldstore$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com/newstore$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/newstore/$1 [R=301,L]

This not only redirects to yourdomain.com/newstore from yourdomain.com/oldstore but also bumps off the www. subdomain
- See more at: http://whaaat.com/content/redirect-o....6ioSysBT.dpuf

Redirects are not a BAD thing, but you do have to be careful to make sure that they are done correctly. There are MANY legit reasons why they may be needed. Here's some examples of where I've used them and WHY:

• Client needed to clean up his product list. Many old products were being replaced with new products, we needed redirects to route traffic from the old products to the new products.
• Client was simplifying his categories. We created redirects (similar to the one above) so that traffic going to the old product URL was properly redirected to the new URL (as the products still existed, but were now in new categories -- and NO we didn't want to use linked categories to accomplish this..)
• Moving a client from Virtuemart to Zen Cart. This was a fair bit of work to make sure that every old link redirected to it's new Zen Cart equivilent.
• Moving a site from Joomla to WordPress (fortunately, WordPress has a number of plugins to make this a fairly easy peezy process)

Finally, regarding the forum I cited above (which I think is similar to what the OP has done with his store), eventually (and to simplify future forum upgrades) her new forum URL was to be http://talk.hersite.com. This way behind the scenes her forum upgrades would be transparent as all we had to do was change what folder the subdomain pointed to. If the OP leaves his store in a subfolder of his domain, I suggest the OP consider the same path for his Zen Cart store.

[RodG]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument

Nothing more.

Cheers
RodG