I have a rather complicated set of questions about a site move that I'm hoping I can get some advice on - bear with me...
We're currently in the process of decommissioning a website and brand (
Holidays in Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily - Voyages Ilena) and redirecting traffic to 1 existing site, which has been around for a number of years (
Corsica Holidays, Villas, Hotels and Apartments with Corsican Places) and 1 new site (
Sardinia Holidays with Sardinian Places - this, at present is merely a holding site, the new site is on its way) and are debating the best way to deal with the redirections.
The 2 poles of opinion would seem to be that we keep the site and put a bunch of links throughout to redirect customers to the new site until such time as the new sites have gained some healthy rankings and the brand switch has sunk in; or we simply remove the site completely and put 301s on all the links.
I think we're veering toward the latter but there are a couple of issues. We'd need to redirect to 2 different sites - is this a problem? And what to do with people that merely search for the brand term 'Voyages Ilena'? Do we risk sending customers to a new site and confusing and alienating them?
All in all I think redirects with some clear documentation on the new sites to highlight the change of brand etc is probably the way forward but I just wanted some second opinions...
Many thanks in advance
Matt