Need a strategy on how to handle my old site

[Michael_T]

I have an old site with a lot of good links built up over 6 years, and a newer site (3 years) that has all our fresh content, latest pages etc.

The new site was meant to replace the old site.

It would be really great if I could have all the links to the old site count towards the link popularity on the new site. Any way to do that? Does a 301 redirect do that?

I've emailed many of the sites that link to the old site asking them to change the links. Only partial success.

30% of the traffic on the new site comes from the old site because all of the menu choices on the old site point to the new site.

Any advice. This seems like a big strategic decision and I don't want to screw it up.

Basically I want the new site to rank well at Google and elsewhere.

[ams_david]

Don't rely on others to change links. Some will, some won't. It's beyond your control.

Don't kill the old links. Make them into 301 (page moved) redirects to the new URLs.

[King of Bling]

It may take a few months for the SE's to catch up (re-index), but going with 301's is the way to go.