301 redirect to new website

[qbeeker]

We are migrating to a new website that will be using entirely new URLs under the same domain as the old website. The old website is a custom PHP script and the new website uses Drupal.

I know that I should use individual 301 redirects to the corresponding new pages.

My question is just how to set up the hundreds of 301 redirects from the old website to the new one?

Here is the process I've come up with. Please let me know if there is an easier and better way for this.

1. Before actually changing to the new website: download an advanced report with all pages on this domain from OSE.
2. Find corresponding pages on the new website
3. Make the hundreds of 301 redirect lines in an .htaccess file with the following code:

redirect 301 /oldurl.html http://domain.com/the-full-url

Thanks in advance for your help!

[RyanKent]

My preference would always be to use the htaccess file for redirects. There are some situations where the site owner cannot modify their htaccess file due to various restrictions, in which case you would need to use a CMS-based solution or extension.

[qbeeker]

Excellent point, Rebekah. Just how would you do the redirects? In addition to finding out which pages to redirect, I'm particularly interested in the best/fastest technical way to achieve these redirects.

Is it right to do this within the .htaccess file, even if it can become quite large with a few hundred lines of redirects?

[qbeeker]

Thanks for your valuable input, Ryan.

Would you do the redirects with .htaccess file, or would you use another way like a Drupal module. If you would use a module, can you recommend one?

[RyanKent]

I agree Rebekah. Sometimes there are factors outside our control which hinder the optimal SEO solution. In those cases, you can ensure the client is aware of the impact and adjust as you recommended.

[RebekahMay]

I agree - in a perfect world redirect all pages.  I should have worded my answer more clearly to say "While 301 is a good solution, I don't always recommend it if it is not feasible due to the amount of pages on your site..."

I've worked with a lot of companies who have a lot of red-tape to go through, and really stubborn developers who often refuse to do a lot of "SEO beneficial" work they feel is unnecessary.  It's really surprising how much control is in the dev's hands for changes, even coming from upper management,  but this is generally a great middle ground for those types of situations.

Thanks for adding that Ryan

[RyanKent]

I agree with most of your plan.

I am not clear if by "advanced report" you are referring to an Open Site Explorer advanced report. If so, I would not recommend that approach. Instead, use a crawler to update your sitemap, then use the sitemap as the most complete list of URLs.

Also, I differ with Rebekah on the point of only redirecting the URLs with the most traffic. When possible I would recommend redirecting every URL to the appropriate page on your new site. Many people might bookmark a page, send an e-mail with a link, etc. You never know who has saved a URL to a page on your site. Also, you did not mention your market. Sometimes a single client is worth thousands of dollars. I would hate to risk losing a potential sale by saving the relatively small amount of time it takes to perform a redirect.

However you choose to proceed there are two additional suggestions. First, ensure your 404 page is friendly and helpful. It should offer your site's navigation, a search box, etc. Second, review your 404 errors DAILY after the site move until your error count drops down to very low numbers.

Good luck.

[RebekahMay]

301 redirecting is a good solution, but I don't always recommend redirecting every page.  Does every page get a lot of incoming search traffic on its own? I would look at your analytics by landing page and take a look at your top landing pages, and then run an OSE report and see what your top pages there are by amount of links.  I would concentrate on redirecting those because they are the most important.  You can then do a mod-rewrite to something like a corresponding category for the other pages to make it easier.