Create an Automatic Redirection Page

Many novice webmasters launch their websites without having their own domain name or a commercial web host. Instead, they rely on free hosts, using a sub-domain (such as: yoursite.freehost.com or www.freehost.com/yoursite) as their website's URL.

However, as the number of visitors grows and their site becomes more popular, they usually end up getting their own commercial domain name and moving their pages to a paid host.

A problem that usually comes up is that the website's old URL is already indexed with the search engines, bookmarked in the favorites folders of its visitors, or hyperlinked from many other websites. If the webpage is just removed from its old location, visitors will get an error message when they want to access it and the website will loose precious traffic.

A good way to deal with this problem is to place a redirection page in the old URL. It must be a very simple page with the site's logo and look and feel, and must be enabled with a redirection script that automatically sends visitors to the new domain. This redirection page must clearly state the following:

"We have moved to our new domain. You are being automatically redirected. If you are not redirected in X seconds, please follow this link: http://www.mynewurl.com"

To install the automatic redirection feature, paste the following HTML code in the <HEAD> tag of the redirection page:

where X is the number of seconds before the visitor is automatically redirected, and http://www.mynewurl.com is the new domain.

It is recommendable to set X to about 5 seconds, to give visitors time to read and understand what is happening.

By following this simple tip, you will be able to move your site to your own domain, and your visitors will automatically follow you.

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Mario Sanchez is a Miami based freelance writer who focuses on Internet marketing and web design topics. He publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), a growing collection of web design and Internet marketing articles, tips and resources. You can freely reprint his weekly articles in your website, ezine, or ebook.

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