Hello
I have a client that moved a domain from old hosting company, to my linux VPS. The old site will be lost, the new site will be a brand new wordpress.
The old site has more than 200.000 pages indexed on google, that will not exist in new site, but I would like to help client not to loose all the traffic from those pages, especially on google.
Most pages are like this:
type 1: http://www.domain.com.vp/popup.php?id_article=199896
Some are like this:
type 2: http://www.domain.com.vp/section_.php?section=Companies
The idea I have is to forward all googlers to 1 specific page in new wordpress site for the type 1 of pages and to forward them to another specific page in new wordpress site, for the type 2 of pages above.
I have read this article here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=25353
According to this article, editing .htaccess file seems to be the right choice, with code like this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com$
RewriteRule ^facts/(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/newfacts/ [R=permanent,L]
But I am not a coder so I dont want to do this by myself. Also, I believe that code will only sort one of the types of pages that I need to redirect, but not the other.
My hosting company also told me that since I am using wordpress I might use some specific plugins to offer google visitors specific pages when old page is not available anymore.
Or change something in the "permalinks"???
Anyway, i need help to make sure one way or another, I do this well.
Please let me know your suggestion on how to solve this to squeeze the most out of existing traffic and pagerank.
If I like your suggestion all you have to do is to implement it, and in exchane I will pay you and give you excellent feedback.