System Administration

Using a redirect in an HTML meta element

This is a draft, because so far my tests show it doesn't work. No wonder it's not common. If you add mod_html_meta to your Apache build, it will. But if you can do that, you should just use the Referrer directive.

A meta element in HTML can be used to pass HTTP headers to the user agent. In many cases, designers will use such an element to cause a page to reload, or refresh.

This is exceptionally handy if you have data that changes on schedule, and you would like the browser to reload the page to get the new data. However, it is also used to move visitors from a defunct location to a living one. This is somewhat functional, but inappropriate. The appropriate tool is the redirect.

A redirect is cleaner than a refresh in other respects as well, particularly if applied to the site as whole, not just to the individual HTML files. It decreases the page load time. Browsers, and Google, notice permanent redirects and stop looking at the former URL. And it affects any file fetched over HTTP, including RSS files. But if you can't modify the server configuration, then you're generally SOL. So, how do you use a redirect in a meta element?

<meta http-equiv="Status" content="301 Moved Permanently" />
<meta http-equiv="Location" content="http://www.coxesroost.net/journal/" />

1:30:23 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration

Moving Google

Jon Udell took the uncommon route to updating his UserLand-hosted site so that it would refresh to his InfoWorld-hosted site: he used XML-RPC to talk to the Radio Community Server. Most people might find it easier to create a directory under $RADIO_ROOT/www/ and use a different #upstream.xml file, to enable upstreaming to both sites at once.

He wonders if Google will notice the change.

Google takes a while, but does notice if there's a permanent redirect, HTTP status 301. It collates the old location with the new. A search for my previous URL links to the current location.

What's unfortunate is that using a redirect in a meta element is less well known than using a refresh not really possible.

12:57:15 PM # Google It!
categories: Writing Online, System Administration