Best way to move from mixed case url to all lowercase?

[franchisesolutions]

We are currently in the process of moving our site from a mixed case structure

i.e -> <sitename>/franchise/childrens-child-care/party/Bricks-4-Kidz/company-information.cfm</sitename>

to all lowercase

i.e -> <sitename>/franchise/childrens-child-care/party/bricks-4-kidz/company-information.cfm.</sitename>

In order to maintain as much link juice as possible, should we be using 301 redirects to point from the old to the new?

or would it be more advantageous to wait for the next crawl and the link juice would also be somewhat maintained even though the all the upper case letters have been converted to lowercase?

[matbennett]

Definitely 301 the old to the new.  Keeping the authority from links is just part of that: The 301 will also ensure that users following those links end up in the right place and also that the old URLs get removed from the index (in time).

If you just wait for the next crawl then you are going to end up with users hitting 404 pages and 2 copies of each URL.

If you don't already have it, this might be a good time to get rel=canonical in place.  It might help ensure that it all gets indexed correctly as it gets recrawled.

[GrowthHackingGooglesIndex]

301 is proper but make sure you do a pro and con list.  Is the move necessary or vanity?

[franchisesolutions]

Thanks for the input Mat and Michael. Unfortunately it is not a question of necessity or vanity now...too late! We have 301 redirects in so, fingers crossed, we will come through ok.