Advice on moving a site?

[springer]

I'm looking for some advice on the best way to redirect traffic and SE spiders from one domain to another.

I was about to embark on a huge remodelling project on an older site (1/04) when I realized I already own another seasoned domain (2/05) that would be a LOT easier to optimize for this market.

The domain I want to move to is "parked" on the same shared server as the older domain. It has some pages on it that relate to my product but I haven't done anything with it in the way of promotion and it's not linked to the other web site.

My product name is the URL for the newer domain but I was having success with the other domain so I never did anything with the product name domain. The product name is more closely related to my market and is also more "brandable" than the older, more generic domain I already use.

Is it really as simple as going into my control panel and setting redirects from all the old pages on one domain to the newer domain? Is there anything special I should consider before setting the redirects?

If anyone has any not too hard to follow techniques for more effective or efficient redirects, I'd really appreciate the advice.

Thanks!

 

[maximus]

Use a basic 301 redirect. Here's an example:

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

 

[BlueMendicant]

yeah, 301 redirect is the best way.

 

[springer]

Thanks. Having never moved an entire site, I wanted to male sure that was the way to do it.

I'd hate to lose the traffic I'm getting until the spiders moved in and I regained what I already have.