Moving a url - 404, 301, orphan page?

[santapaws]

when it becomes necessary to move the location of a url what do you believe to be the best way to handle it. First let me say the subject matter of the page remains 90% the same. The other 10% being changes to the product itself needing an update in its information (and name).

I always thought it best to 301 from old location to new but tedster keeps mentioning trust issues and i notice google does not like ranking my 301 pages (apparently). So is it better to simply 404 the page or leave it as an orphan with a message directing users to the new page?

[tedster]

Sorry for any confusion I've caused. If you're moving a single url and the new page has 90% similar content, that's exactly the time to use a 301.

My cautions were about introducing thousands or hundreds of thousands of urls, or using a 301 when the new page is not similar to the old page.

[edited by: tedster at 4:39 pm (utc) on May 8, 2008]

[santapaws]

ok, thanks for putting me straight.