Take down old site, should one permanent redirect?

[olly]

We have an online forum which we set up some time ago. It has accumulated a little content over the years and is also PR4. The problem now is that we get very few posts and most of the new users and posts are spam - it is wasting staff resources having to monitor these things.

I am undecided as to whether
(i) Take the forum down and walk away

(ii) 301 redirect the forum to our main website

The forum does get a little traffic so (i) may be a waste. I'm not sure if (ii) is proper use of a 301 redirect.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[goodroi]

when a website shuts down, people often stop linking to it. your pr4 301 redirect can quickly turn into a pr2 301 redirect.

i would turn the forum off and transform it into a static website. make sure the new static pages have links pointing to your main site. this will give you access to long tail keywords and give you link juice.

[tangor]

Repurpose the site with new content. What existing traffic there is can continue for a bit and help generate new traffic, particularly if the new content is compelling. Do link to main!

[olly]

Hmmm, the problem is the time one needs to invest in generating content and preparing the site. It may end up digressing from our core focuses.

If we were to 301 redirect the site, are there any penalties we would need to be aware of?

[mhansen]

Taking what GoodROI said to heart... I would put up a 2 page site.

1 - Index page, stating who, what, where, why, when, and that you have moved, please update your bookmarks.

2 - Contact us, with the new info, please update your info or contact us.

Then, I would 301 every page to the index page for 120-160 days. After that, I would 301 the index and the contact to the new site.

During that initial time, I would visit it monthly, monitor the backlink referrers in the stats, and send requests to webmasters to update links to the new site.

After 6 months... the links that matter will have updated their info, and you can 301 the entire site.

If its worth asking about, you obviously care to preserve it. If you care to preserve it, its worth doing right IMO.

MH