New website, New Host, Old page showing up in Search

MortimerJazz · 08-11-07

Hiya,

A few years back I did a bit of freelance web design to get a bit of extra cash while I was at uni/looking for my first job.

One of the websites I did was for a friend down the road who has just got back in touch. She's now had her site re-designed and switched her host.

However, if you use Google to search for her company, her old contact details from the site I designed show up (albeit after her current contact details).

So she's got back in touch with me, believing that the problem lies in the fact that the old files are still on the old host's servers. Could this possibly be true? It just doesn't quite seem to make sense to me, especially if she's changed the name servers on her domain to point to the new hosting package.

Is this just a case of having to wait for Google to update, or should I really be trying to remove the old files?

Thanks alot for your help.

channel5 · 08-11-07

if the old page is still there and available on the web under a different URL then it will continue to be indexed.

The best thing to do would be 301 redirect the old URL to the new URL, you'll pass across any link juice and history to the new page then which will help its positioning.

MortimerJazz · 08-11-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by channel5

if the old page is still there and available on the web under a different URL then it will continue to be indexed.

Thanks for the reply - as far as I'm aware, no URL is pointing to the server now (it's pointing to the new hosting instead), although I guess if it's still technically live it will have an IP address.

Could that be causing the problem?

channel5 · 08-11-07

If it appears in the SERPS and when you click on it the page works, then it has a URL.. can you post the search term?

nick279 · 15-11-07

The redirects can be setup on the new hosting platform (if it's linux) quite easily as mentioned above using 301 redirects (if it's on the same domain!)

www domain com/old.html will still point to the same ip as
www domain com/new.html

I'd hurry though as every day you are losing existing listings, pagerank and Google trust of older pages