Google finds the wrong web address - what to do?

[solidgoldmini]

I maintain a website for my friend's family's local historic convenience store/deli. I've had the site up for I think 2 years or so (time flies!). I use Rapidweaver to make and maintain the site, and I've used Google's Webmaster site to make sure Google finds it and has a sitemap to look through. (It does, and it seems happy.)

The problem: When someone Googles the name, Linwood Market, the first thing that comes up is the address to a host I just recently switched from (I would write it out here, but now I'm afraid Google will see this and I'll never be able to remove it...just Google 'Linwood Market' and it's the first result). So if you click on that, you get the 'page not found' message. And the link it shows is the address of the server it was previously hosted on, rather than the domain name (www.linwoodmarket.com). My question is, is there anything I can do to get Google to stop showing that old link to my old host? I was looking on Google's Webmaster page about removal, but it's not technically removing a page, so I don't think that would help. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. And if you're anywhere near the southern New Jersey area and you would like one of the best Italian Subs around, stop in to the Linwood Market!

 

[wordmunger]

Just give it a little time for the change to trickle down through the internet. It's working fine for me now -- in a few days everyone will be fine.

 

[angelwatt]

If you still have access to the old server I would use the Apache .htaccess file to forward the people to the real site.

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_alias.c>
  Redirect permanent /~a0003c4f/ http://www.linwoodmarket.com/
</IfModule>

This will only help if you have access to the old server.

I have also had Google keep trying to access a file on my server that no longer exists and hasn't for about 5 months and still tries to access it about 20 times a day, though it was a .ics file that I use to be subscribed to. But given time your issue should resolve itself.

 

[solidgoldmini]

Thanks for the tip, but alas, I no longer have access to that server. But I will remember that tip for the future and cross my fingers Google gets it right soon.