Permanent 301 Redirect
Redirecting a web page
A web site is a dynamic entity with new pages, new features and new designs being added and implemented over time. Due to this you might want to use a new file naming structure or layout of your directories. Thats fine right, nothing to worry about there then? Well that depends on how much you value search engine traffic.
If you move a page all of the links pointing to the origional page will produce a 404 error page and you will lose the search engine traffic that that page was receiving. By redirecting the origional page to the new page you keep all of your traffic.
Why 301 Redirect?
Why 301 Redirect? Good question, there are many ways to redirect a web page. There are several different server side languages that support this. There are HTML meta redirects and several other methods.
A 301 server response code means that a page has been permanently redirected. The search engines check the response code and act on it. A 301 response code will allow the search engine to pass on all of the value that the origional page had and will help the new page achieve good search engine results whilst still keeping all of the orional traffic.
Example
Create a .htaccess file (if does not exists) in your root directory.
Redirect 301 "/oldpage.html" http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.php