Setup 301 Redirects

[timscullin]

I have been asked to transfer a clients old domain over to a new domain with a new site. All of the inbound links basically go to the homepage, and the few links that dont go to the homepage on the old site, might as well be redirected to the homepage on the new site.

I'm wondering is there a "catch all" sort of redirect such as www.oldsite.com/* redirects to newsite.com. So any redirects we havent set up will automatically go to the new site homepage?

And secondly, whats the easiest way to the redirects up?

Can I just add it as a parked domain or addon domain in cpanel, and do the redirects in there? Or does it needs its own hosting for the old domain with its own htaccess file?

Any help appreciated!

[AlanMosley]

Yes there is a catch all. If you are using a Windows server try here. http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/how-to-fix-canonical-domain-name-issues

I would not redirect deep links to home page, find a page relevant to the link text and linking page and redirect them there. Googe and Bing have said they dont like that sort of thing and may be discounted.

It does not need to be on its own hosting. just point both domains at the same website, then do the redirects.

[matbennett]

I guess as you mention .htaccess you are running apache - try this example: http://www.isitebuild.com/301-redirect.htm

If you are using cpanel I would add it as a parked domain - then follow the instructions in that link to do the redirect through .htaccess .

Parked domains on cpanel/whm don't redirect, so you will have a duplicate content problem if you miss out the .htaccess step.  Remember to update as many incoming links as you can as well. Although the 301 will pass the rank on, it does keep a little to itself, so update your biggest incoming links to point to the new domain.