What is The Right Way To remove a page
 

What is The Right Way To remove a page and move the traffic so you dont catch a Search engine penalty

Since no one else has spoken up I'll post my opinion.

A 301 redirect tells the search engine that a page has permanently moved.

If it is a whole directory or a domain use this htaccess
Or if it is just one page on your domain then send the traffic to a 404 page that says the page is missing. From what I understand you should not just send the traffic to the root of your domain as Google devalues your 404 page and also you should not use the full url to your page as this causes a 302 redirect in addition to the 404 redirect.

But if someone knows better please post.

If you have the domain listed in Google's Webmaster Tool area, after you 301 or 404 it, you can ask them to remove the URL from the database too.

Thank you but how do i 301 it without affecting the other pages on the domain

In your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /oldlocation/oldpage.html http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html

In the old information you don't want to use a full URL, so don't include the http://www part of the address. Just use the path from the top level of your site. But do use the full URL in the new information. And make sure to leave one single space between each of the items of information on the line in your htaccess file.

This will send a http header message that you've permanently moved that page to the new address and tell the SEs to index just the new URL. It should keep the SE ranking and position and pass them to the new page.

Off topic - Tommy I sent you a PM recently, can you take a look at it please, thanks mate :)

if you have a managed server which most dedicated customers have I just send my host the url I want 301 and its done

Try redirecting your site to some temporary page. It will be good so that the visitors will go directly to your temporary page. :D

Thanks everyone and thank you Simon that worked!!!

Jel.. umm .. did i answer you ??

Not as yet Tommy :)

Tommy
I need Your answer too ;)