Deleting pages and preventing Google fallout

[mm1220]

I have a bunch of pages which I want to delete from my website. Before I go ahead and just delete them from the server, I'm looking for some advice on how to go about deleting them in a "Google-Safe" manner.

As far as I can see my options are:

1. Delete the pages and all internal links to them and leave 404 errors handle the mess.

2. Redirect (301) the pages to my site's homepage.

3. Put placeholder pages up in their place which say something like:
"Article no longer available, please consider taking a look at other articles on this site ..."

Which would be the best way to do this?

Thanks.

[digicam]

Hi, I would also welcome some input in this subject, I went with adding a redirect to a page say "blah this has moved" as there are a large number of pages so I could not think of a better option.

But I would really like some other opinions

cheers

[Nutter]

If it were me, I'd do a mix of 1 & 3. Set your 404 or 410 pages to do what you describe in #3 - something like 'you've reached a page that not available. It's possible it's been deleted...' as a custom 404 / 410 page.

I would not do the 301 redirect to your home page. As a visitor, it would irritate me if I thought I was going to a page specific to what I wanted and found it redirected to a general site.

[artdog]

I did #1, this last update moved me from page 2 to page 12 so started cleaning house on supplemental pages. Also slowly updating remaining supp pages to remove any dup content.

Don't know if related to above work but now on page 3 for the prized term and rising for others, ie from low on page one to 1,2 or 3 position.

Traffic definately up and very surprised to see results so quickly.

Now, this may do nothing for anyone else, no hard evidence provided here.