Most of the websites I make for people are on linux servers, but in an effort to expand my know-how I am now running a few simple pages on Windows. The fundamentals of XHTML and CSS are the same, but server-level things are way different. With linux, you have a .htaccess file that you can use for page redirects, url canonicalization, and much more I’m sure!

Back on Windows servers, you may have a web.config file if you’re the system admin and running a dedicated server. I, however, use shared hosting on GoDaddy, which means that there isn’t a huge IIS command center to log into.

After sludging around in the mud for a while trying to figure out 301 redirects (the best permanent redirect for SEO), I finally figured it out. The GoDaddy help on 301 redirects works as long as you know to put the code in a default.aspx (or .asp, as the case may be) file in the directory that you’re wanting to 301. That will trump index.html – where my SEO-unfriendly redirects were.

Surprisingly simple.