<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=/blog/newpage.html">
The content parameter specifies how many seconds to wait until the refresh directive redirects a visitor to the page to the URL that is specified by the URL parameter. In the example above, the redirect occurs immediately, since zero seconds are specified, but sometimes someone will want the visitor to read a note he has placed on the original webpage before redirecting the visitor, so might specify a nonzero value, e.g., 10 or 15 seconds.
Another way to redirect visitors and search engines that index the page is to use a server-side redirect by a .htaccess file placed in the directory where the original web page is located. A directive similar to the following one can be placed in the .htaccess file:
Redirect 301 example.html /somedirectory/example.php
In the example above, any vistor accessing example.html will immediately be redirected to example.php on the same server. The file example.php could be in the same or another directory as example.html. The visitor could also be redirected to a webpage on another webiste, e.g., the following could be used:
Redirect 301 example.html http://example.com/somedirectory/example.php
When the redirect is placed in the .htaccess file, the visitor's browser will never see the original example.html file, which could be deleted if it is no longer needed. The 301 code tells search engines that the webpage is being permanently redirected to the new page. This technique is useful if you wish to have a page's ranking carry over to the new page, since search engines such as Google will carry over page rank to the new page if this status code is used.
A 302 code can be used, instead, to indicate to a search engine that the page is being temporarliy redirected. E.g., that might be done to redirect visitors while a webpage is undergoing maintenance.
Multiple redirects can be included within the same .htaccess file. E.g.:
Redirect 301 /somedirectory/example1.html /someotherdirectory/example1.html
Redirect 301 /somedirectory/example2.html /someotherdirectory/example2.html
Note: when I've omitted the full path in relation to the root of the website from the original file names when I've included multiple redirects that I have observed inconsistent redirects, so I've included that path in the example above. Omitting the path for the pages to which visitors are to be redirected results in a "500 Internal Server Error" being displayed, instead of the desired webpage.
In order for the .htaccess method to work, an AllowOverride directive must be placed in Apache's httpd.conf file in the virtual host section for the website that is going to use the redirect. If that is not done, a visitor will see a "500 Internal Server Error" page, instead of either example.html or example.php.
And, if you looked in the Apache error log file for the website, you would see an entry similar to the following, if the .htaccess file was in the directory /home/jdoe/public_html/blog/.htaccess:
/home/jdoe/public_html/blog/.htaccess: Redirect not allowed here
For the redirect to work, an AllowOverride directive must be placed in Apache's htpd.conf for the relevant website. E.g., if there was a virtual host section in the httpd.conf file for the website example.com and the directory in which the original file resides and in which the .htaccess file is placed is /home/jdoe/public_html/samples, then the following lines could be placed in the virtualhost section for example.com in httpd.conf:
<directory /home/jdoe/public_html/samples>
AllowOverride FileInfo
</directory>
One could also use "AllowOverride All", since "AllowOverride FileInfo" allows only a subset of what "AllowOverride All" allows.
After updating the httpd.conf file, the Apache webserver software must
be restared, which can be done with the command apachectl restart.
Editing the httpd.conf file and restarting Apache will likely require root
access, so, if you are using a hosting provider, unless an AllowOverride
directive is already specified for your website, which may be the case, you
might not be able to use this method.
The httpd.conf file will also need to support a rewrite engine, e.g., by using mod_rewrite. If the following line is in the Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support section of the httpd.conf file, then the mod_rewrite module will be loaded. If you are using a hosting provider, this may already be present.
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
References:
Created: Sunday March 9, 2014