What happens when our old site is replaced?

[MaineWeb]

I'm about to launch an e-commerce site which is now at http://64.179.21.94 It will replace the site at www.MainResource.com.

Also, I'll be combining the content of our other site, www.MyHeadsets.com with the new site. I'll keep the domain www.MyHeadsets.com and just point it to the "About Headsets" page.

My page rank and search positions are OK for the www.MainResource site. What happens when I replace that content with the new? If my page www.MainResource.com/Executone.html has a great placement in the search engines and I call the new page www.MainResource.com/Executoneinfo.html (for example), will I lose the position?

Should I go back and rename the pages on the new site to be the same as those on the old site?

This site has been very helpful in untangling the mysteries of SEO, but I'm still tweaking and nowhere near done, although I guess you're never done.

[minstrel]

I'm about to launch an e-commerce site which is now at http://64.179.21.94 It will replace the site at www.MainResource.com. Also, I'll be combining the content of our other site, www.MyHeadsets.com with the new site. I'll keep the domain www.MyHeadsets.com and just point it to the "About Headsets" page.

Good - keep your old domain name and the redirects as long as possible (I made the mistake of letting an old domain name lapse a few years ago because it had some decent SED rankings it was grabbed by a porn site - nasty situation and a lot of work for me to track down everyone still linking to the old one and warn them and beg them to edit the links). For redirection, don't try to make it transparent - let people and spiders know what you're doing by putting a "this site has moved" page as both your home page and a custom 404 page:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="10; URL=http://www.newsite.com">

OLDWEBSITE has moved!


Remember to update your bookmarks to:
New Website Name.
<BR.
If your browser supports &quot;Client Pull&quot;, you will be automatically taken to the new site in 10 seconds.



Otherwise, please click on the link below:



http://www.newsite.com

My page rank and search positions are OK for the www.MainResource site. What happens when I replace that content with the new? If my page www.MainResource.com/Executone.html has a great placement in the search engines and I call the new page www.MainResource.com/Executoneinfo.html (for example), will I lose the position? Should I go back and rename the pages on the new site to be the same as those on the old site?

If you have good rankings for the old page-name and no compelling reason to change the name, why risk it? If there IS a compelling reason for a new name, use the redirect method above to let visitors and spiders know about the change - that way you can still get the click-throughs from the search engines.

[MaineWeb]

Thank you. I went in and renamed all the new pages to match the old page names. Painful, but I'm sure it was worth it!