Not sure if this is best suited for this forum or the SEO forum. Anyway, years ago I used an open source php shopping cart that was built with urls such as:
/index.php?target=categories&category_id=508
Eventually the cart started to use SEO friendly urls and that url for instance become /stuff.html.
Well, when the new cart first launched I had their developers create me a special 301 redirect list to point all of the old urls like /index.php?target=categories&category_id=508 to their new homes, ie: /stuff.html.
The list was working great and I was getting all of my old traffic.
Then one day they updated the cart and the 301 list stopped working. They had no solution.
I just ignored it but I notice that I lost a ton of backlink juice around the time the cart stop accepting the redirects.
Now, I am using Wordpress (got rid of the old cart awhile back). BUT how can I recapture those old backlinks? I have tried redirect plugins but they do not understand my old urls.
I want to send people to my new site, the right way.
I was Googling some of my old urls tonight and a lot are still live on message board discussions that relate to my products and services.
I really want to recapture these. Does anybody know of the best way to handle this?
