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I agree reaching out is something we do all the time, however we did have a very good link as the DA was high and relevant and all we asked was that they used our named incorrectly, we also pointed out a typo on the article (we put it nicely). As well as correcting the typo, not responding to our email, they deleted the whole section about us, and in the process removing the link. So contacting them is something we always do, however sometimes there can be consequences, on this one I wish we had just left the our branding wrong and kept the relevant link.

I have a glossary on one of my websites.  It has been there about ten years and receives between 200 and 1000 visitors per day.  It ranks #1 for "[industry name] glossary", "[industry name] dictionary" and many similar terms and has held those rankings for many years.   It has about 1000 definitions, some that are very close or repeats as you describe. When I made this glossary I decided to place it on 26 pages - one for each letter of the alphabet.  During the first few years it was up, I was tempted to convert it to one page per definition as you propose but decided against that.  I was tempted because I thought that the glossary would rank for lots of different keywords and pull traffic for all of them. In the past two years, I have been really glad that I didn't create all of those pages.  Why?   Panda.   The Panda algo would probably not be kind to those pages.  They would contain an average of about 50 words.  That is too skimpy and I think that my site would be demoted for thin content. What I have done is write substantive article pages for many of the definitions.  These are 500 to 2000 words with photos, graphs, data, etc.  Each of these article pages receives a link from the glossary definition and these page rank really well for very difficult terms.  I only have a couple hundred of these articles but finish one or two more every month - so its growing - slowly. I have ignored the glossary for the past several years but this week I have been adding new words and adding images to many of the definitions where they would be helpful.   I am also adding links within the definitions to pages where I have articles about those topics.  The goal is go move glossary visitors into the rest of the site. Two of my friends have glossaries.  One made his on 26 pages like mine and is getting lots of traffic.  The other made separate pages for every definition, was doing great in the early years, but recently had Panda problems. Good luck with whatever you decide.

I agree with ntcma that there are gains to be had if you wish to retain their existing clients, brand, etc., but are you looking to just sweep them out of the way in Google altogether? What is your preferred scenario? -Andy

Uhmn. Yes and no. 302 suggests it will be back. but actually it will be never back.  So a 302 would keep the link juice where it is which is fine. because you do not want to have all that juice to the invaluable login page right. but noindex following is the way to go.