404 redirects to main index page, bad?

[rfung]

The SE's have indexed pages from my site, in the meantime, I've restructured it and many of them no longer exist. I've created a 404 custom page that will redirect the user to the index page. Is this the right thing to do, or should I redirect them to a 'this page no longer exists, click here to go to main page'?

I'm concerned about wether which one is a normal practice, and if this will affect the SE's into thinking my index page is duplicate content somehow?

[vabtz]

good question I was wondering the same thing.

I was thinking of instead of a redirect having a site map display instead.