Redoing a site - 404 redirect or 301 redirect

[mkmedia]

I'm redoing a website, should i 404 the old pages, or 301 redirect to the main page? what is better? (around 100 pages)

[edwardrj]

If the site ranks well and there's any way to preserve the present URL structure, that would be your best bet. If that's not possible, 301 the old URLs to the new applicable pages.

You can do this via .htaccess like this:

301 redirect /old-permalink-here http://new-full-url-goes-here

[danatanseo]

Hi Felix,

If there is going to be a relevant, equivalent page on the new site, by all means a 301 redirect is best. If the old content is really not going to have a parallel page on the new site, then a 404 would be fine. Just keep in mind that 404s can frustrate users who are trying to access your site. It would be best to create a friendly, customized and humanized 404 error page if you intend on allowing old pages to 404. Even if 404s arent in the plan, you're bound to have some eventually so I'd strongly suggest creating a custom 404 page anyway.

I agree with cardiganMedia's comment about using 301 redirects for any pages that have built up any page rank or inbound links. Check them in OSE and make sure you preserve the authority the old site had by making sure to 301 redirect high authority pages to their equivalents on the new site.

Good luck! I hope these are helpful suggestions.

Dana