October 12, 2003
Googlebot and moving site?
Anyone out there know the implications of moving a site from one IP address to another and it's impact on the Googlebot? We've moved Syndic8 from one host to another. We've correctly updated our DNS records for it. Yet we're still seeing traffic from the Googlebot to the old IP address.
The old site is still online pending some last-minute checking and updating. We want to make sure the Googlebot understands that it's not supposed to bother with the old IP address any longer. What's the best way to do this?
Is is better to tell it 403, 404 or do a redirect? If we do a 403 (forbidden) will that affect it's understanding of the domain as a whole? Likewise, what about 404 or other error codes? Or if we use a redirect, will it understand this and update it's records?
