If you own a web site, you never know who has saved a page from your site to their favorites file (bookmarked it). It might be your home page, a great article, or a terrific resource. And since you don't know, every time you remove a page, you run the risk of people getting that annoying "page not found" error when they click on their favorites link.

You can always find out later how many visits your "removed pages" have had by viewing your site statistics and examining your error log (if you have one)-but by then its maybe too late.

When you remove a page, honor your viewers by providing them with an option. Take the page you want to remove and turn it into a redirected page. Redirect it to your home page or another page on your site that contains similar information. How do you do this? Let me give you an example.

I had a page on my site called www.coachmaria.com/coachability.html. The information originally on that page is no longer useful, so I removed it and inserted the HTML code below. Now when someone goes to the old page, they are "redirected" to another page. Try it www.coachmaria.com/coachability.html The HTML code I used on the page below for you to view.or use. The number "2" in the "meta tag" represents the number of seconds it will take to redirect the page. Change this number as you see fit. The "meta tag" information takes the page directly to another page (in this case contest.html). I use the other information "just in case" the meta tag redirect doesn't work. It gives the viewer the option of tapping on a link to move directly to the redirected page. Your webmaster would also have to remove the dot I put into each of the HTML tags below. (If I didn't add them here, you wouldn't be able to view the code below).

<.html> <.head> <.meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://www.coachmaria.com/contest.html"> <./head> <.h1 align="center">*Maria's Place Redirector*<./h1> <.p align="center">We have moved the page you've saved. You will be taken to a new page immediately.

<.a href="http://www.coachmaria.com/contest.html">Click Here<./a> if the page takes too long to load. <./BODY> <./HTML>

Bonus: This program provides an on line, fill in the blanks form, that produces HTML code you've requested for your re-direct page. It's by InnerPeace.org who calls it a jumper page program. http://innerpeace.org/pagejumper.shtml

About the author:
Maria Marsala, Business & Life Coach-Consultant-Author-Teacher-Speaker. Visit www.CoachMaria.com for more information and to subscribe to "Growing You and Your Business" a free weekly on-line newsletter.