404 Error and Site Search

[lanesharon]

I am very new at website design. I had submitted my website to google some time ago, and they found me and indexed me. My only problem is that I have made some website changes since that time, which means that I am getting some 404 errors. I have read on the forum that I can change that by clicking on 404 error on my control panel (create/edit 404 error) and adding some code to redirect. My question is what type of code. Do I use standard HTML to do that in the body of that or do I have to use some canned code fromt he drop down menu on that page?

My next question is about adding a site search. Once again, I used the google free search engine to do a search on my site. My problem is that this search is used exactly like their normal site search. It is only indexed when I ask them to index, 'when they get a chance'. Is there a way that I can add a (hopefully free) search engine to my site that re-indexes on a regular basis?

The site is:
http://www.rare-cancer.org

[stratplan]

In answer to your second question: I use and can recommend these search services - the 1st you tell it when to index your site, the second you can set up automatic indexing. (both are free for normal usage - under 1000 pages)

http://sitelevel.whatuseek.com

http://www.atomz.com

You can see them in operation on:

http://www.katycoc.com

http://www.biblicaltheism.com

The first question has been covered in another forum topic - I'll see if I can find it and reference it here for you.
Yep - here is some info:
http://www.page-zone.com/forums/show...=&threadid=547

[kenyon]

Google does refresh their index on a regular basis. (See http://www.google.com/addurl.html.)

For making a redirect page, there are two ways it can be done: server-side or client-side.

You can use PHP to do a server-side redirect, see http://www.google.com/search?q=server%2Dside+redirects.

For a client-side redirect, use the meta HTML tag. See http://www.htmlhelp.org/reference/html40/head/meta.html and http://html.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa080300a.htm.

[lanesharon]

Stratplan, can I shrink you up and keep you in my back pocket to hang out with me and answer all my novice questions? As usual, you came up with the answers I needed and I thank you.

Some day I will actually be able to finish the medical information for this site, all the links (and there will be hundreds) for support people, and all the rest of the work. By then, I hope to have learned a great deal about website design and maintenance, and maybe just maybe, I can do something to make a little money for myself. That is when you guys may see me lurking on this group looking for all the knowledge I can soak up (and I do believe there is a lot of knowledge here). Right now, the volunteer work keeps me busy day and night.

It is always a pleasure to come to this forum. It is the one place where my questions do not get ignored. It helps me to know that there are some people out here willing to help out an old programmer trying to do the 'right thing'. Thank you.

Take Care, Sharon