Best practice when reducing the number of pages

[OrderBlinds]

Hi guys,

I have recently changed one of our sites pages from having 1 main department page that links off to 6 others to showing all the products on one long page in an effort to have one authoritative page for this product type that can then be promoted on its own rather than promoting 7 pages and thus watering down any value.

My question is now I have removed the links to the old pages should I just delete these pages altogether and setup redirects or should I leave them up as individual landing pages for those smaller product groups?

If you look at the page below you can still access the smaller pages from the links in the jquery banner.

http://www.orderblinds.co.uk/dept/wooden-venetian-blinds_d0161.htm

Thank you in advance,

Matt

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I tend to follow the rule of thumb that states, if you have a close match to a page being removed, then setup a 301 there. If not, it is better to remove it altogether and give it a 410 (Gone) rather than a 404 (Not Found).

I hope that helps a little.

-Andy