If you change the URL of a page, you should set a 301 redirect via the .htaccess file so that search engines and anybody with the old URL bookmarked will automatically end up on the correct page and not with a 404 error.
Ah - good question. As that’s more of a server question than an SEO question, do you want me to move the thread to the Server Config forum? If you’re still hoping for more SEO-related responses, you can leave this thread here and open a new one there.
Hm, in post #3 you asked how to do a page redirect in IIS. Anyway, I agree with TechnoBear in terms of using a 301 redirect. If you do that, Google will see that the page has moved and will transfer any credit from the old page to the new one.
Sorry, yes I did ask that. I was thinking that I needed to do something like an .htaccess file in the web.config instead of just doing the redirects. Since it is a php script, will doing the redirect on the script fix it for all the pages?
So if we have event.php?eventid=1 and I redirect event.php will Google be ok with the page eventid=1?
I guess it depends on what the page needs to do. What is a new setup? Does the new version need query strings at all? I wouldn’t include them if you don’t need them. I would just make sure that any old links that include them still land on an appropriate page.
Is the info at eventid=1 short term or is it expected to last for a long time? If it’s an expired event, it might be fine for users just to end up at the event home page. But if the content at eventid=1 is permanent, and will in future be stored at a different URL, then I’d be looking at a more elaborate redirect setup that would redirect links like that to a specific, equivalent page.