Redirects vs. deleting the page

redirects vs. removing the page

[amythepoet]

which is better? redirects or removing the page?

I chose redirects, but I have a lot of them, maybe 20, I have a large site and many pages are too much alike, so I thought I should redirect some pages and did that

Is that ok?

just trying to tidy up the site

[dannyboy]

Depends. If it's a page that gives you meaningful search engine traffic, then it's best to properly do a 301 redirect so the engines can update their index.

If it's a nothing page that you or your visitors don't care much about, then I say delete it and let the 404's flourish.

[espsol]

as far as i know redirects are harmful for your site from a search engine perspective... is it true?

[amythepoet]

i use the 301 redirect

I believe I am fine

[jdMorgan]

The proper HTTP response for a deleted page is 410-Gone. Seeing a 404-Not Found in your logs means someone --the linking site or you-- made a mistake.

If you have a relevant replacement for a deleted page, then 301-redirect to that replacement. If you have no relevant replacement, then return a 410-Gone.

Jim

[amythepoet]

Jim,

Yes, I have a relevant replacement for deleted page

is thre a limit to how many redirects I can have? I am trying to reduce the size of my site

[amythepoet]

Let's say that I have 4 pages dealing w ith widgerts

page 1 says used for 50 widgets

page 2 says 50 widgets on tomahawk building

page 3 says building a tomahawk with 50 widgets

shoulnd't I remove two of those pages and only be left with one page that has the most commonly u sed phrase, such as - Uses for 50 widdgets?should t hat be a redirect or a rename or delete the old files?

thanks for your advice


thank you

now should I redirect the other two pages to a general page ,m lets say 50 widgets?

[jdMorgan]

Do what makes sense for a visitor who has clicked on one of the old page's link in Google... Do they land on a page that is useful for their query? If so, then all is well. If not, then the page where they land needs to have some of the information added that was on the old/removed page.

Do what make sense for your visitors.

Jim

[amythepoet]

ok, maybe it would make sense to rename the pages which are a bother too, Il think it over and make a decision

thank you

Amy

[wkathome]

Hey, thanks for the info on the 301 redirect. I upgraded my "all in one seo" plugin to the pro version and it changed all my blog post url's, so now Googles got a lot of dead links and I was wondering how to fix that. Hate to loose the search engine ranking for those links.
Now I got a lot of work ahead of me. :-(

thanks again great information

[amythepoet]

Once I have redirected all of my files to other files, can and I should I delete the original redirected file or leave it there?

I'm confused

[wkathome]

I went through the same thing with all in one seo pro, renamed all my old urls, but there is a plugin called Redirection that you can download and install. Just put in the old url, then the new url, a hassel if you have a bunch of links, but better not to loose the backlinks or search engine inquiries.

[HRoth]

What if you are shifting the content to a new site? I want to take pages from my ecommerce site for things I no longer sell and put them up on another site for informational purposes that I will monetize later. How is it best to do that? 301?