Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I don't think its exhaustive but I remember stumbling across this post which covers a lot a while back:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/200-parameters-in-google-algorithm/15457/

I think it may now underestimate how many factors are taken into account with social media.

Personally I am with you on 301'ing the old pages to the new ones. I would submit the new sitemap to Google and wait.

It can take a month or two for old pages to shift completely.

Hi Ben,

You probably want to redirect a single page if it is going to a 404. In which case you probably just want add code into the header of the problem page. Whilst you are at it, it might be worth checking that your non-www. pages are forwarding to the www versions. (http://exampledomain.com -> http://www.exampledomain.com)

PHP Redirect

Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
Header( "Location: http://www.exampledomain.com" ); 
?>

Htaccess 301 Redirect (non-www. to www.)

Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.exampledomain.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.exampledomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Custom 404 Page

I would also suggest a custom 404 page with links to your most popular pages, search and a back button.

Hope this helps.

C