Search engine Handling of 404

When a search engine comes to a page who's name had to be changed to be case
sensitive, and gets a 404 error, does it actually read the head of the 404 ,
and obey a robots meta if there is one included?

I am considering altering the 404 page on my site to have a meta http
redirect to the site map. Would this be considered a manipulation of a
search engine, and get the site banned?

Example:

The search engine comes by the page: www.mysite/whatever/html , which has
been renamed to /Whatever.html , and is now on a server which is case
sensitive, and the page was renamed to integrate the site properly to the
new host. Is it better to make a page with the old name and have a redirect
to the new one, or is that frowned upon like with the Google redirects? I
can edit my 404 page to have any html , but I dont want to steer away a
robot, but at the same time help the users who already may have it
bookmarked, or find it via a search engine read the correct page.

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 17:35:23 -0500, "Techforce" <spam (AT) linhax (DOT) com>
wrote:

When a search engine comes to a page who's name had to be changed to be case
sensitive, and gets a 404 error, does it actually read the head of the 404 ,
and obey a robots meta if there is one included?

I am considering altering the 404 page on my site to have a meta http
redirect to the site map. Would this be considered a manipulation of a
search engine, and get the site banned?

I am not sure, if you are talking about using META refresh as a form
of redirecting, I think that is frowned upon slightly ... I don't know
if you will get banned for using it though. Some of Traffic Power's
trick was to use a mouse-over javascript as a form of redirect and
lots of their clients' sites using that were banned and there was talk
about that particular technique, if caught, could have your site
booted out of the index.

If you are talking about the META robots tag of FOLLOW, INDEX - or
NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX - unreliable method. Some spiders acknowledge it and
some don't - some have used the NOINDEX and still had the contents
indexed on Google even though Google states it will acknowledge that
tag's presence.

Could use 301 redirect; Yahoo will still list your old filename but
people clicking on that would be directed to the new filename. Yahoo
views 301 as serving up duplicate content so their spiders ignore
following those ... but I can't recall hearing of anyone being
penalized [site removed from the index] for using 301. Yahoo has
supposedly stated they prefer receiving a 404 error page versus a 301
redirect. Google is rumored to be considering ignoring 301 redirects -
I don't know if they have or not though.

In terms of customized 404 page, mine is condensed form of the site
layout with the navigation links provided and a brief message that the
page the person was looking for had either been renamed or moved. I
don't see a reason to redirect them to the main page or whatever since
the same set of navigation links are already provided for them to use
on the 404 page. If you are thinking about redirecting them from the
404 page to your site map then share a brief message about the page
changing name and to use the site map provided below to help them find
that info - then share a version of your site map on that page. I
really don't see a need to redirect them from the 404 page if able to
provide a customized one.

Carol

Mines sort of the same, and right now I list all the pages effected by the
case sensitivity with their new URL respectively, but according to my logs,
some people dont even click on them <sigh> unless they are robots ? Another
idea I had is to place a search box in the HTML , and Fill in the box with
the page they tried to bring up - but not sure how or even if thats
possible. I use a php bases search engine for my site, and I believe I could
place the search box there no sweat, but filling it in may be problematic.

In terms of customized 404 page, mine is condensed form of the site
layout with the navigation links provided and a brief message that the
page the person was looking for had either been renamed or moved. I
don't see a reason to redirect them to the main page or whatever since
the same set of navigation links are already provided for them to use
on the 404 page. If you are thinking about redirecting them from the
404 page to your site map then share a brief message about the page
changing name and to use the site map provided below to help them find
that info - then share a version of your site map on that page. I
really don't see a need to redirect them from the 404 page if able to
provide a customized one.

Carol

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:00:03 -0500, "Techforce" <spam (AT) linhax (DOT) com>
wrote:

Mines sort of the same, and right now I list all the pages effected by the
case sensitivity with their new URL respectively, but according to my logs,
some people dont even click on them <sigh

Some folks may be like me and just remove the 404.html snippet of the
URL in the browser window and hit enter. So registers on your log
files as me getting to your site via "type in/bookmarked" method.

Carol

My Site does not add in the : 404.html on the end - it merely keeps the URL
you typed in, but shows the custom 404 page you design. I decided to add a
link to my sites search page, and search for the term directly. However, I
noticed today, somoene typed in the old page's file name and not the Key
word phrase. So I went in to those pages that I had their names altered, and
included the old file name in the meta keywords for those particular pages.
Now my sites engine will pick them up and produce the new pages if they do
this again. Now I know why SEO's make big bucks ! <grin>

Some folks may be like me and just remove the 404.html snippet of the
URL in the browser window and hit enter. So registers on your log
files as me getting to your site via "type in/bookmarked" method.

Carol