I do not see this happening, but what would be nice, is upon either adding something that requires PHP (like a stack) or after a publish of a page that has changed from html to php, is to have RapidWeaver remind you to remove the index.html file.
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A âcheckâ should be implemented (like with @joeworkman s Foundation theme) to make you aware of that (but not to delete anything automatically).
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It would be imposible for RW to know what I want to delete. There is no way I would want that automatically. My main site is made up of 18 project files (to keep it reasonable in size). And within the main public folder I have 14 other sites from different projects, some with their own domain name.
I manually delete, but before I do it, I use a 301 error page list to bounce all references of those pages to my new page/site. Then after deleting, I check the 404 error pages and add any that continue to be hit to my 301 list, bouncing them to the new page or the home page.
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A possible solution would be a set of preferences that gives the user control over how aggressive RW is when deleting server side files. My experience with DreamWeaverâs syncing showed me that I would be fine with a full sync. Obviously others are concerned about deleting some or any files.
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I would only want to delete files RW would have created itself. I do not see any reason for an automatic deletion to touch 3rd-party or manually created files. That would never work (I think). And for removing folders a check would be necessary, if any additional âunknownâ files were created inside that folder. But for anything else,⌠Well, I am not a hardcore coder with scripts and such stuff. Is there any reason to manually modify uploaded RW-files after upload to the server?
Put at least some flag like âRemove old RapidWeaver files and foldersâ (with a check for unknown files I mentioned). I think that would be very helpful.
This will NEVER happen, stop wasting your time perusing this âfeatureâ
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This continues to be a problem for me. People keep landing on âdeadâ pages through Google searching. All pages that I feel should have been deleted by RW when I deleted them from my project, and are still there in some regards even after I thought I had manually (via FTP) deleted them. I have no choice but to delete all the files via FTP and republish. I should not have to do this.
You should never just delete a page that has been published. You lose all of your SEO rankings for that page, Search engines will still direct people to the old page, and if it is gone, you will give them a 404 not found.
Part of deleting any page that has been indexed should be to include a redirect to a new page.
As a web developer, you need to learn to do some housekeeping.
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Iâm not a web developer, I use RW. I use RW because itâs simpler, and I donât have to know code. I tried to delete the pages, but somehow they were still there. The problem is people keep hitting my âdeadâ page and contacting me. It wastes my time. Thereâs no good reason why RW canât delete a page from my FTP if I delete it from my project. If someone does not like this, then add an option to never delete anything, but I want them deleted. Yep, Iâm getting mad!
I think what Doug is saying is that you have a Google problem, not a RW problem. Google has previously indexed your pages (and their links) and people are finding them. So even if RW did delete your pages, youâd have the same problem (which you can see because youâve gone in and deleted them in FTP on your own)
The âproperâ (Iâm using quotes because Iâm guilty of not doing this sometimes) is to provide redirects to existing pages when you delete old ones (or set up a custom error page so users that hit dead ends can find a way out.
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What exactly is a âdeadâ page?
Is it a page youâve deleted in the project but is still on your web host? Or is it a page that no longer exists because youâve deleted from your project and your web host?
It sounds to me like youâve deleted some pages, but theyâre still indexed in Google so people keep clicking to your âdeadâ pages. Like @teefers said, if you just delete pages that are indexed in search engines, donât be surprised if people still click on them when they still appear in the search results. Thatâs what a 404 page is for, or a redirect.
On the other hand, I might just be rambling.
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Itâs a page that I obviously moved in my project, maybe more than once, and then I deleted it. I used my FTP to delete all the instances left behind by RW, but I missed a few. People could get to the page, not a 404. I canât be expected to keep track of all my pages. Thatâs why I use RW!
Itâs finally gone now because I republished everything.
@bruce I am also not a programmer, but have learned there is housekeeping to do and things to be aware of, having nothing to do with RW. Itâs not RW you should be 'mad" at. As mentioned, Google acts in certain ways that we have no control over.
So Doug @teefers , Neil @NeilUK Paul @PaulRussam or Jason @jabostick , any idea how long it takes Google to update indexing? If I submit a new sitemap, will it start updating? I had no idea about redirecting pages once deleted, that is very helpful to know.
thx
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In my experience, Google are quite fast at indexing new content and updating URLs to pages that have been redirected.
But if someone just deletes a page/post/article without a redirect, it could be months until Google takes that URL completely out of its index.
In addition, you can also ask Google to remove certain URLs/pages using Webmaster Tools, or block certain URLs through a robots.txt file. But, even so, it might be days/weeks before things are removed from the search engines.
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Good to know, thank you 
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Google, Bing, and others search engines will index new content fairly quickly. They donât look at your site as a whole and remove old pages.
Keep in mind that any backlinks (someone in a blog or article linking to a page on your site) will âreactivateâ the page.
When the robot crawls a site it doesnât check âright nowâ to see if an URL is still around, it just catalogs it.
If you have a page that is showing up in the SERP, it probably took some effort to get it there. By just deleting the page without a redirect your losing all your âSEO juiceâ that page gained your site. Using a 301 redirect will help keep that ranking.
The other thing you should consider is your customers that have bookmarked a page or added it to a reading list. If you just delete it, they get a 404 page.
I recommend you always test your redirects with a 302 first as 301âs are permanent and get cached.
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Well, Iâve screwed that up. I completely rebuilt my site, not paying attention to any of that. Once I finish fiddling, I will leave it alone and let Google do itâs work In the future, I will follow that idea. thx
I want RW to delete my page from the FTP when I delete it from my project. I really donât care what meaningless to me consequences there are. RW is making me do work I should not have to do.
Itâs probably not too late to benefit from doing the page redirects to your new site urlâs. In google webmaster tools you can see the old urlâs that are now getting 404âs and make the necessary redirects from those urlâs to your new urlâs.
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Great, thanks, David
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