Redirects - How Best to do this ?

[AMG100]

Hi

I am looking to close Website A which has many pages. I would like to keep the home page and add some great content to it with a link pointing to Website B. As for all the other pages excluding the home page , how is it best to approach them on Website A. Should I redirect them all to the home page of Website A which will tell Google thoose Pages are no longer needed and to prevent the visitors from seeing a 404?

My Main aim here is to not lose any visitors to Website A by sending them to Website B but also to hopefully pass any Page strength from Website A to Website B

Thanks

Adam

[CHarkins]

The answer is "it depends" because I don't have enough information to give a good answer.

For Site A - You are getting rid of some number N of content pages and replacing that with a smaller number of content pages and redesigning the home page. I have a number of questions about that:

1. Are you totally deleting the content, or are you consolidating the content onto larger, more comprehensive content pages?

- Example: Today you have pages for [Great things about Red Shoes] [Tips on tying your Yellow Shoes] [The buying guide to Blue Shoes]. Are you replacing that with [The Comprehensive Guide to everything you need to know about wearing, tying and buying any color shoe]?

2. You mention Site B. Is Site B going to contain all of the content that was on Site A, or is it getting totally new content, but in the same subject area?

[AMG100]

Hey Craig

Thanks for the reply

This is the Website www.maskheaven.co.uk , I plan to make the Home Page display good content about Masks with 1 link pointing to a landing page on another website.

The content will be taken from this page http://www.maskheaven.co.uk/history.html and http://www.maskheaven.co.uk/artmasquerade.html

No site B will not contain any of the content as seen on Mask Heaven (site A) Site B (undicided currently) will be a landing page to an ecommerce store with Products only / Product Descriptions

I hope that helps

Thanks

Adam

[danwebman]

I did this successfully in 2006 with http://www.wyko.co.uk  and http://www.eriks.co.uk.

We set up a number of 301 redirects Permanent Redirects. Advertised on the homepage of the old, the new website.

I then sat back and watched the traffic diminish next to nothing on Google Analytics.

Once the site was getting a smaller number of hits on anything but the home page we transferred the domain to point to the new site as it is still today.

NB Make sure the GA code is above the redirect!

[Vizergy]

Kind of going back to where I believe Craig was heading... Even though the content will be very different will the products be the same or similar?  Will 'Site B' be selling masks?

I think where Craig was going was - will there be pages on 'Site B' that would be relevant enough that you actually redirect 'Site A' pages over to 'Site B' pages rather than to the 'Site A' home page?

If I have misrepresented your line of thinking, Craig, I apologize.