The Evil Eyebrow

General Query for Server Savvy People

Written by

Bill Ruhsam

in

As noted in the last posting, I just moved this blog to a new server.

I believe that I’ve managed to make everything work out for the best internally, i.e. with significant help from Jim Cronen, I fixed the links that would have been directed back to the old site and everything else should be transparent1.

However, there are a lot of links out in the wild that all refer back to the old site. For example, any commenting I’ve done that might link to http://www.evileyebrow.com/2008/11/13/no-worse-person-to-lead/ is now being hosted at http://www.evileyebrow.com/2008/11/13/no-worse-person-to-lead/.

I still control the jbwr.net domain, so what I want to do is have some sort of file that sees these links coming in and automatically redirects them.

I know how to do this on an individual folder basis with an index.asp file, but I’m not sure how to do it in a blanket, domain-wide fashion so that every incoming link gets sent to the right spot.

Anyone want to help me out?

1: If you happen to find broken stuff, please let me know.

Comments

4 responses to “General Query for Server Savvy People”

  1. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Depending on what web server software you are running you may be able to manage these redirects with an htaccess file (Apache). I’ve seen an example for a grep-like search and replace that does selective rewrites of links.

    You might try this site: http://www.htaccessredirect.net/ for some examples.

  2. Ben Ranker Avatar
    Ben Ranker

    From your HTTP headers it looks like evileyebrow.com is running Apache. In Apache it’s easy. jbwr.net appears to be running IIS, though. I bet that’s easy, too, but I know precisely zero about it. So, in case you decide to go grepping through docs, what you’re looking for is a 301 redirect. The 301 refers to the HTTP code that the server will send in its response, and it means that the page the user requested has moved permanently over to the new address.

    You basically want the server to take any request to the old blog archives, infer the address in the new blog, and 301 users directly over to it. Apache users would use the Redirect directive, so perhaps you might find something by searching for Apache users forced into IIS and trying to figure out how to Redirect.

    As an added bonus, Google recognizes 301s, so if you have any google rank to speak of, it should transfer once you get the 301s set up.

  3. Bill Ruhsam Avatar
    Bill Ruhsam

    Ben: You’re right that jbwr.net is running IIS, but it won’t be for very much longer. The Eyebrow got moved first because it was going to the hardest to deal with (for me) but the entire jbwr.net domain will be sitting next to it on the same server within a week, I project.

    So, I’ll be Apache’ing everything up for fun.

    Hmmm…Will my index.asp still work once it’s over on the Apache server?

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