404 errors

[bsofttech]

Hey everyone. Appreciate your insight on this.  I just finished redesigning my website today and just published it to my server. I decided to go with a real basic html site figuring I may get better results with the search engines. I still have a bunch of optomizing to do but I have a question.

Since I was using aspx it is safe to say that many sites will be linked to those old pages. In the interest of not loosing this traffic I told IIS7 to do a 302 redirect to my home page for any 404 errors. Is this the best thing to do or is their a better way?

Thanks much

Ron

[Copstead]

I agree with Ryan.  You need to setup 301 redirects in IIS for all the old pages.

Never use a 302.

[AdoptionHelp]

You want to go through each page of your old site and if it had any links or authority at all, create a 301 redirect for it. That tells the engines your page has permanently moved, and tells them where to find the new page. This will preserve the majority of your authority for every page.

If you 302 them all to the homepage you're telling the search engine "this content is related and is a substitute, for now". However, you want -all- your pages to continue being indexed with as much authority as possible, not just the homepage.

After you've got your 301's set up correctly, then you can focus on creating a 404 page that is helpful to your users. Usually this means suggesting content based on the keywords in the URL, or including a search or link to the homepage.