301 redirects

[YNWA]

Hi, we have an old site hosted by company A. We rank for certain terms in google for certain brands and products.

Now we have developed a new website on a new domain hosted by Company B.

If we are 301'ing at brand/product/page level from old to new, who is it that should perform this job? Is it Company A or B, old or new?

And does the physical website need to remain hosted for the 301 to work and for our SEO ranks on the old site to not fall apart?

Company A think we can do an excel mapping doc for each link from old site to new. Hand file to Company A and they host this file (not the actual website) then we transfer old domain to Company A as well. Then the 301s will work fine.

Yet Company B think we should continue hosting with Company A, keep the old physical site live and put the 301s in place. They say if the 301 link has content behind it then it will help or not take the chance of having the SEO affected?

Who is right? Do you need the old website to remain live once 301s in place or can this 301 config file hosted on a domain be all we need to do?

Any other ideas welcomed.

Thanks

[TakeshiYoung]

Company A is correct. The content won't matter anymore once the 301s are in place, since no one will ever see it. You can either have Company A put the 301 redirects in place to your new site, or transfer your domain name to Company B so that they can put the 301 redirect in place.

[DougRoberts]

I agree with Takeshi, but would add the following point:

If you've got the time, it can be well worth reaching out to those websites linking to you and asking them to update their links to link directly to your new content. Not just because of the link, but because it's also a great opportunity to make contact and build awareness and build relationships with those other sites.

Obviously you can do this once you've got the new domain launched and the redirects in place.

[YNWA]

Thanks Doug, thats exactly what I had in mind.

[YNWA]

Thanks Takeshi.