How to 'retire' a page and point it to the new URL without Google.penalty

John Bokma wrote:

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:

From the Apache mod_rewrite docs:

"To enable the rewriting engine for per-directory configuration
files you need to set 'RewriteEngine On' in these files and
'Options FollowSymLinks' must be enabled."

It is a common misconception that Options FollowSymlinks is optional.
The truth is that it is required, but often set by the server config
in wich case you don't have to set it again.

Thanks, didn't know that. However, I don't see the relation.
FollowSymlinks means afaik: support symbolic links in the
documentroot. I can understand that for some forms of rewrite
it's required. But in general?

If you want to put a rewrite in the root .htaccess and have
it apply to the whole site (or maybe just the root?), I think
(but have not tested) that the Options FollowSymlinks can be
left out. If you have an .htaccess in a subdirectory and you
want it to rewrite, mod_rewrite uses the symbolic links feature
to do the cascading needed.