Site Map

Question about redirect and site map

[sleepy_eye]

Hi Guys
Need help and advise on this one
I will be redirecting about 200+ old links to a one page which will be a site map of current pages.

Is this a bad or good idea? Will search engines see the site map as spam and thus the pages on it as spam?
Or will search engines see it as a replacement of old pages to new more relevant pages? (Will be done with 301's )
Thanks for your input.

[jdMorgan]

The proper response for removed pages which nave no exact replacement is a 410-Gone, not a 301.

Your custom 410-Gone ErrorDocument can contain your "site map" if you like. If the client (e.g. browser or search engine robot) sees a proper 410 status response from your server, then there's no danger of looking spammy.

If you cannot generate a 410-Gone server response, then a 404-Not Found is the second choice, and again you could include your site map in the custom 404 error page.

In either case, the error page should explain that the requested resource has been removed intentionally (410) or is missing (404). This will inform visitors and Webmasters to update their bookmarks and links respectively.

Jim

[sleepy_eye]

jdMorgan - Thanks very much for the info. Makes complete sense :)