I've made this nightclub site which has events which turn into gallery pages when changed in the admin section. Trouble is the address changes from events/show_event.asp?id= to gallery/show_gallery.asp?id= meaning that events pages 'vanish' when they become gallery pages. I've put a bit of script on the show_event.asp page that shows a 301 if the event has been archived and points it towards the gallery index page. My question is this: Will google read my sitemap and not feel pissed off that the page has vanished and see the 301 for that particular page (i.e. gallery/show_gallery.asp?id=96 or see it for all id's on the gallery/show_gallery.asp page and ignore the page completely? Am I trying to be too clever?) A real hum dinger... Go on geniuses, please help! Jk
As long as you're pointing the 301 to the corresponding show_gallery page you should be ok - it would be a good idea to generate a new sitemap.xml.gz file each time this happens that doesn't contain the events/show_event.asp?id= page but does contain the gallery/show_gallery.asp?id= page. This way, google won't be looking for the old show_event page, and users clicking on previously indexed page links that have been 'galleried' will be redirected