I have changed some links of a few pages in my site. and my site users have bookmarked some of those pages .what should i do now? should redirection is a good idea or giving a custom 404 page to them giving them the path of new page is better so that users must know that their bookmark has been changed?
Hi IndianEyes! I think 301 (permanent redirection) will be a better Idea (from SEO Perspective) U can also go for 404 Error page but here you have to market the Error page very well. To know more, pls read a small post on "How to use 404 error page as a great marketing tool?" I will suggest you to go by 301 redirection. Thanks!
but if i 301 redirect some of the pages, users will see it as there normal bookmark and will not bookmark them again as internally they do not know the page has been redirected.
I think that custom 404 pages would better serve your purpose as you want to inform your visitors that their bookmark is changed.
in your case, custom 404 page would be the best solution. I think it will satisfy you for it meets your desired outcome.
In my opinion, 301 redirects are a reasonable solution when searchers are delivered to updated information. Of course, whenever a site must rewrite URLs due to a content management system (CMS) migration, a page-to-page 301 delivery is the solution. However, for expired content, delivering a custom 404 page is more appropriate, in spite of the "link juice" theory.
301 Redirect is a better solution SEO wise. If you change them all to 404 pages Google will drop those pages out of the search index. Maybe check the backlinks and rankings of the pages in question. If they have no links and dont rank well you have nothing to lose by 404'ing the page. Otherwise the 301 might be the best option. Hope this helps