How to update change in page name to Google Webmaster

Question

I have recently changed one of the page from new_page?(parameters) to video.php?(parameters)

My questions are,

1. how to update this in Google webmaster tools
2. How webmaster handles the old page new_page?..(parameters).. which no longer exists in site.
3. The old page will now redirect to error 404.php (file not found page). will webmaster still crawl the old page ??

Please help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Instead of redirecting to a 404, make the old pages do a 301 redirect to the new pages. A 301 status code means the page has permanently moved. This way you will not lose value on your old links.

You can read more on webmaster tools

This is how it is done in php:

file: old_page.php

$url = "new_page.php?".$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
header("Location: ".$url,true,301);

You can also do it in your .htaccess file.