Hi Kelly,
To give you a quick background as to how we got here...
We have consolidated allot of the pages from our old site into one page. Our strategy was to let our suppliers websites expand on the machine range, and we concentrate more on the solution with the customer. The descision of what kind of specific machines our customers need usually comes later on in the sales cycle.
Our site now talks more about 'the application' rather than the individual equipment (we sell machines).
Potential prospects will normally search for 'laser cutting machinery' as opposed to 'TRUMPF TruLaser 3050" (which is a laser cutting machine model). Pages with individual machinery was what our old website was all about. This is why allot of the pages that have been indexed will no longer have a home :O(
To cut a long story short, we would like to pass page rank of what's out there to our new pages, but to a certain degree, I am expecting this not to work so well as the new content will not 100% support what the searcher is obviously expecting. I'm guessing we will simply yield higher bounce rates.
I have gone through my top 70 +/- indexed pages that are high stake for us and manually added a 301 redirect in htaccess (I know, you're probably laughing). There are still another 200 or so pages out there which will land as a 404. This is my main concern and I guess this is what this post is all about. 404 = loss of site integrity.
Few! I'm done. :O)
