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Re: Accessibility of redirects

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 6, 2007 11:10AM

On 3/6/07, Penny Roberts < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Should the redirect go to the new home page or the page that directly
> corresponds to the old destination?

You'll likely get a number of diverse opinions on these questions, but
here's my opinion.
The pages should redirect to the page that directly corresponds with
the old destination. This should be done with a server-side redirect
that sends a permanent redirect message to the web browser and search
engines.

In Apache, it would be something like:
Redirect permanent /oldpath/oldfile.htm http://newserver.com/newpath/newfile.htm

More info on Apache redirects at
http://juicystudio.com/article/apache-http-status.php
There are other redirect codes that can be used if the file is gone
permanently or has been replaced by something new.

> Should it be instant or delayed?

Instant. Why bother the user with an error message when they've done
nothing wrong? If you use the correct server redirects, it will be
totally seamless to the user and search engines will be updated with
the new location very quickly. As long as your redirects function well
into the future, even if the user has a page bookmarked they will not
see any problems. Unfortunately, browsers do not yet know to
automatically update URLs of bookmarks when the location has changed.

You can also do a Google search to find pages that link to your web
page and you could ask them to update their links to the correct URL.
Simply search for "link:www.yoursite.com/yourpage.htm". For instance,
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:webaim.org shows all of the pages
linking to our homepage.

> If the redirect is delayed how long for?

If you do choose to display a "This page has moved..." message, it
should display until the user chooses to go to the next page.
Automatically changing the page with javascript or a meta refresh is
certainly going to make the content less accessible to someone. Simply
display the correct URL as a link and allow them to activate it to
move on.

> What sort of wording is appropriate?

"This page has moved. Please update your bookmarks or any links to
this page. The new address is http://....." or something similar. But
again, I think this does little more than burden the user with an
error they have no control over - a server-side, permanent, instant
redirect has very few downsides.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org