Decommissioning a website

I have the task of decommissioning a website. Very few of the pages will be taken to the new site, with all the other content deleted for good.

On the main pages that I would like moving to the new site, I take it I would be best doing Redirect 301's to the new domain/pages.

But what about all the old content that is going to be removed completely and never seen again? Do I redirect everything to the main url of the new domain? http://www.domain.com/ or if there is going to be a short description of the merge/decommission should I redirect everything else to that link on the new domain, so the search engines know where to look for an update of the content. Even though most of it will not be there anyway.

My main goal is to have all the current success with search results transfered (the best way it can) to the new domain/page. One a select few of the pages the content on the new domain will have all the content on the old page plus loads more.

I saw the HTTP code "410 Gone", but that seems a bit harsh.

Thanks for any input.

Paul.

Technically the 410 Gone is the proper error code. If those pages, and their content, do not exist anymore then they really are gone. If they do exist elsewhere then take advantage of a 301 redirect for them. Otherwise, it's okay to bury them for good.

Thanks.

The actual pages on the current site will never be seen again as they are right now (of course after the decom.).


The few pages that have content that will be used on the new site should be 301 Redirect?

The pages that have content that is to be removed forever should have 410 Gone?

And the various pages that have new names/content on the new server (but still of the same type of page/area) I would be okay to do a 301 Redirect on these?

And lastly, how long would you suggest leaving the old site live for the search engines to catch up? I suppose most of the search engines would be clever enough to see that if they got lots of 301 on a domain, they might check other known pages soon rather than later?

Definitely.

Yes.

Might as well. That way visitors to the old pages can find the new content.

Once the redirects are up and every page on the old site leads a page on the new site the old pages can come down. This is assuming you are using Apache for your redirects. If you are putting your redirects into your code you should wait at least until the old pages are out of the search engines. Ideally you could leave them up forever so people who still find the old pages (like through bookmarks) can still find the new content.