Mod Rewrite Working But Google does not like it

Server Config
1 


RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\\ /index\\.htm\\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\\.htm$ http://example.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^page\\.htm$ http://www.example.com/page-skyblue.html [R=301,L]

why on earth would this page-skyblue now lose it SERP? it had a 1st page SERP for 8 years!

when the only thing that changed was the page-name and extension?

2

lukkas,

There’s no telling with Google but the only reasonable thing I can see is that you’ve changed the domain (with the external redirection) and they think you’ve moved it along elsewhere (and don’t like “trading”/“selling” their PR).

Regards,

DK

3

No, I am not doing anything sneaky at all. There isn’t a domain change just a page name change.

I was going to do this 2 to 3 years ago and finally got around to it.

Is my formatting incorrect here?

should I be doing this way instead?

 
Redirect 301 /old-page-name.html http://www.yourwebsite.co.nz/new-page-name.html
space
Redirect 301 /old-page-name.html http://www.yourwebsite.co.nz/new-page-name.html

Thanks

4

lukkas,

Whoops! I wasn’t accusing you of being sneaky, only pointing out that an external redirection is telling the visitor’s browser that you’re sending to another domain (which, in your case, is the same - why the external redirection then?).

Unless you have a series of redirections like this (which can be handled by regex patterns), your Redirect statement is good (they’re identical!). The syntax is Redirect {status code} {path to your directory or file} {absolute redirection} so you have all the elements required.

Regards,

DK

5

I am over my head with htaccesss mods.

I was given this by someone else so if someone types in hxxp://example.com it changes it to hxxp://www.example.com

OK, great so my new page from old page is correct as it is then. I think Google took the new page out of SERPS b/c I left the old one in at same time for 2 days and they deemed it duplicate content on same domain. I am not sure why they haven’t revisited it quickly like they did 2 weeks ago to figure out that page was removed.

6

lukkas,

If Google saw the 301 redirect, that should have caused them to update their database to reflect the change. If you’re duplicating your registration elsewhere, they would consider that an abuse of their service. Try e-mailing them to explain what you’re doing and ask for them to revisit (after removing the duplicate).

Regards,

DK