I'm moving my site from one server to another, which means a different
IP address. My local cable provider takes about 3 weeks to update
their DNS records, though, so I can't just copy it over and update the
nameservers; I need to do something for the people that are still
pinging the old server to get them to the new one.
My best thought is to use the .htaccess file on the old server to
redirect them to the new server via IP address, like this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %%{HTTP_HOST} ^
www.mydomain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$
http://12.34.56.78/~mydomain/$1 [R=302,L]
I'm using R=302 because I don't want search engines to record the IP
address, obviously; I want them to retain the domain name, and to them
it SHOULD be updated pretty quickly.
My questions are:
1. Is this really the best way to handle this?
2. If so, do you see any problems with my code above?
3. Is there a way to make the redirect invisible, so that the person
pinging the old server wouldn't see the
http://12.34.56.78/~mydomain
when they're redirected?
