A 301 redirect is a method of telling search engines and visitors that a page had permanently moved to a new location.
it automaticly forwards the visitor to the new page/site
There are several ways of doing this.
Redirect in PHP
<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>
Redirect in ASP
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location", " http://www.new-url.com"
>
or for something a bit more advanced
eg redirecting all versions of yoursite.com/pagename.htm to
www.yoursite.com/pagename.htm.htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yoursite\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yoursite.com$1 [R=301,L]
