When a website is replaced by a live SiteWorks site then visitors will still arrive at the site being replaced through links from other sites or their browser bookmarks. The usual approach to address this, if possible, is to organise redirection of traffic to the new SiteWorks site.

We recommend contacting sites that have links to your old site advising them to update them to reference your SiteWorks site. See below for how to set about this.

Once your SiteWorks site is live the first step is to edit the site being replaced to explain that you have a new site and provide a link.

Next, if possible, setup a redirect to automatically land visitors on your SiteWorks site if they navigate directly to your now old site. This is covered next.

Technical Notes

The approach to redirection will depend on whether or not you have registered a domain name. For example ‘handf.org.uk’

If you have a domain name then through your domain registrar (usually the hosting company of your site being replaced) organise a redirect. Technically this is a 301 “moved permanently” status. This will automatically take visitors to your SiteWorks site. It will also mean that any web crawlers indexing your site should immediately stop using the now old URL and browsers should forget offering the old address. How this is done will depend on the company (ISP) hosting the site.

If you don’t have a domain registered then an automated redirect may still be possible through your hosting company. Otherwise your can rely on the old site having a notice to say your site has moved and provide a link.

Note that if you have a domain then it won’t be possible to ‘point’ it directly at a SiteWorks hosted account using DNS records. The is because SiteWorks uses subdomains (as in handf in https://handf.u3asite.uk) and they all share the same IP address.

3rd party links to your site

You can use your preferred search engine to locate the links to the site being replaced. Go to the home page of the search engine (google.com, bing.com etc.) and type in the body of the URL i.e. omit the https:// – do not do this in the address bar of your browser as this will likely land you on the site. Don’t just type in your u3a name as this will include other references and muddy your results. An example to search for could be handfu3a.org.uk.

The search results will list sites with link(s). You will need to skip results that originate from within the site. Check each result and decide how important it is to contact them with a request to update their link.

Some specific sites to check:

• If you use Beacon then update the System settings u3a Home page and other references to Site Builder (this won’t be picked up by the search)
• Notify your Network u3a and/or Regional u3a site admins
• If you are registered with the Charity Commission their contact information needs updating
• Check local community organisations, councils etc. although these should show up in your search results.