During a site platform transition, should we 301 redirect all URLs or only those with inbound links?

[outofboundsdigital]

We have an ecommerce client transitioning to a new platform. Due to the nature of the platform, all the pages will have different URLs. There are between 7000-8000 total pages on the website.

We wrote 301 redirects for all URLs which are showing inbound links. Unfortunately, automating this process is pretty difficult and hand writing URLs for 8000 links is unfeasible. Is it worth investing the time to 301 redirect all 8000 URLs, or are we safe with only doing those with inbound links?

One other option would be to implement a generic redirect for all the rest of the old URLs that sends them to the homepage. Would this be a good compromise?

[Theo-NL]

This one depends on the resources spent vs. the gain you'll get (like almost anything in SEO by the way).Because you've mentioned that redirecting the 8000 URLs should be done manually, I would advice against that considering the small gain you're likely to get from 'URLs that arent showing backlinks in any tools but appear to have had them after all'.

Based on the info we have I would suggest to go for the one you've suggested last: a generic redirect for all the 'left over' URLs as that seems like the best balance between resources invested and gains received.

[RyanKent]

A thought to consider is you may have links that you are not seeing. There are also bookmarks users may have along with e-mails which can offer a link to each page.

Every product page represents potential sales. If a user who does follow a bookmark or link finds the page they expect, there is a much higher likelihood they may make a purchase on their next visit. If users are dumped on the home page they may close the browser window. Think about how you would react if a friend sent you a "hey, look at this great product" e-mail link and you found yourself on the home page of a company with 8000 products.

It comes down to what type of company you are and how you wish to balance costs versus service. Is this a one person company who lists 8000 products and dropships orders from various suppliers? Or are you a large company with a warehouse which carries thousands of products and has a large staff. In the latter case, I would ensure all the pages are properly redirected.

Keep in mind your redirects don't necessarily mean 8000 lines of individual code. Depending on your old and new URL structure, it is possible your entire site can be redirected with a single regex expression, or a relatively few of them.