How do I get Altavista to update page links?

[net4ward]

I have recently updated my website with a new design which resulted in new pages to replace the old pages. The index page contains links to the new pages.

I still have the old pages stored on the site, and my problem is that Altavista is still showing the "old" pages and not the new pages.

Example: Page1.html was replaced with bio.html. Altavista is still showing the Page1.html when I search the site on AltaVista.

How do I get Altavista to update their links/pages?

Should I use a META tag to refresh to the new page, or should I use Apache's Redirect command in the .htaccess file to redirect the request to the new page.

Which would be the best way so I do not loose the listing at Altavista (since they apparently have switched to a Pay for listing program)?

Thanks,

John

[wizardofx]

let's face it, Altavista is dead. Once she was the coolest thing on the internet, but they made some mistakes, got passed around, and now she is dead. I have pages that have been ranked #1 with Google for 5 months that have not been picked at all up by Altavista, or her ugly stepsisters either.

Altavista has been relying past momentum, but now she is running on fumes. She can't be relied on to give current results, and if you want to view paid advertising there are plenty of sites out there that do that without pretending that they are search engines. It is sad.

best regards
wiz

[digitalpoint]

Right now, the best thing about Alta Vista is Babel Fish. But even that be being eroded away by Google's translation tools.

[schlottke]

I still use the babel fish- and I wouldn't worry about altavista- its about as useful as hotbot

[compar]

How do I get Altavista to update their links/pages?
I agree with the others. When I read your post the thought that went through my mind was "who cares?".

But I suppose the real question is what traffic do you get from AltaVista? If you are getting any serious amount of traffic then of cousre you should care. But I will be really surprised if you are getting even 1/2 of 1% of you traffic from AltaVista.

[wizardofx]

Actually in the last week, zero. I wonder if they
have combined reporting with Yahoo, because
I usually get about 3% of my referrals from Altavista.

But you are right, even though each visitor is
precious, Altavista hasn't been contributing many lately.

wiz

[disgust]

I still use altavista quite often for their image search- they usually give more results than google.

that's about it though.

[vinyl]

i will give it a try (their image search)... being honest, i didnt know they have it at all :)