New page: properly manage old page URLs to keep SEO score intact

Question

I built a new page (Wordpress) whereas current page (custom CMS) is already ranked pretty high in Google's search. What would be some approaches to keep that SEO rank intact, such as handling 301 redirects while taking into account that most of the content is not the same now ? I will probably have to fiddle alot with .htaccess, but with the whole page of links, that won't be very nice I should think?

A few things to keep in mind perhaps:

• both pages have certain post types, such as 'locations' and basic 'articles', although their url structure and most other content differ
• certain 'locations' are still present but of course have a different url now: I could manually manage the redirects for them, but not for 'locations' that will be added afterwards

To sum my question up: how to manage old page links properly to keep the current SEO score mostly as it was and what to do with old links that now don't represent a page even on a new page?

I would appreciate some real-life examples.

Answer 1

Think about user: Do not redirect any blog post/page to other webpage, because user like to see what they want, and good 404 error is better than redirect option.

Think about Google Spider : Google follow links, and pass it's value from one webpage to another i.e. PageRank value. So, if you stop/remove linking to old/unwanted pages, then less PageRank will flow to old pages, and your regular post will get most of reputation, so it will give you good result in search.

Answer 2

To sum my question up: how to manage old page links properly to keep the current SEO score mostly as it was

Use 301 Redirects to handle content that now has a new URL,

and what to do with old links that now don't represent a page even on a new page?

Best to have a good 404 page set up that includes a search option or map of the new web site structure. This will also help Google spider the new site.

Don't forget to also create and submit a new XML sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools.