Pages got penalised. Best way to remove them and make new pages?

[Jessica]

Ok, so somewhat 500 pages got penalised for some reason - i suspect it was bad linking strategy (link trading / building etc)

I want to replace them with new pages. New pages are going to be pretty much the same (without the linking screw-up), i just want them to have a fresh URL for google.

So should I 403 the old pages, or disallow the google bot to them in .htaccess? I don't want google penalising new pages i'm gonna make for dupe content from these old pages.

Advice?

Thanks.

[tedster]

First thing, are these urls all on the same domain? If so, what percentage of the total is 500?

A 403 Forbidden seems wrong to me. A 404 Not Found or 410 Gone status should do it, if you really need those urls to be gone.

[Jessica]

yes they arfe all on the same domain.

index page has great ranks, but all the content pages (looks like all of 500 of them) got penalised

i want to take them down and immediately put the new ones up (so the visitors wont miss out)

so i want old pages be gone fast and new onse put up right away - without triggering dupe content filters.