Do you actually need to have a website for a .301 to redirect from?

I have a 301 set up to redirect from a .ws to a .com, but Yahoo still keeps caching the .ws!

Is it possible for me to delete the entire site at the .ws, leaving just the .htaccess (and therefore the 301) on the server?

If not, will uploading several files and renaming them to match the source 301 redirects do the job? e.g. one redirect is from .ws/joinus.htm to .com/joinus.htm. Could I just upload a file and rename it joinus.htm so that the 301 will still redirect to each individual page at the .com from the 'empty' .ws ...?

 

If you don't have domain.ws, you can't have domain.ws/.htaccess !

 

Let me clarify: I do have the domain ... but do I need to place a site on the domain to be able to institute the 301?

 

no - you don't

 

You can have it with only the .htaccess file on the domain.

 

... and am I right in assuming that by leaving only the .htaccess file on the old domain,

1) I'll get all the traffic from the old domain;
2) The search engines will not be able to cache pages from the old domain?

 

Eventually, I think the old domain will get no traffic, if the search engines dump the old links, and you don't have any back-links.

Search engines won't even see any thing on the old domain since they'll be forced to the new domain.

 

Thanks for the reply Nintendo.

The reason I ask is that I don't understand the following:

Yahoo returns 'London Escort Agency' in #7/8 for my .com (the new site), BUT when you click on 'cache' it states:

See for yourself: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=london+escort+agency&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

How can this be the case - why is Yahoo displaying a cache of the .ws when the SERPs results return the .com?

 

You probably have to give Yahoo time to delete it. I know Google can take a LONG time to get rid of old URL listings!!!!