Hi, I have 2 main web sites that i want to scale down into 1. Im going to set up 301 redirects on one to the other. My question is ... How long do i need to keep the original site with the 301 up for? I dont really want to keep extra hosting costs so if i set up my 301's is it a case of wait for google, yahoo and others to visit and index the 301's and then close the whole site down or do i still need to keep the old site up even after the 301's have been indexed?
Your host should be able to park the old domain on top of the other. It will answer to your new hosting account. You can then do a 301 redirect for the old domain to the new one.
not sure i understand 'midwest' can you explain more? Example if i have a 301 like site1.com/index.html site2.com/index.html Are you saying point the whole domain of site1.com at the host for site2.com and then upload my 301's into site2 ? Sorry if im being thick ...
Pretty much... If it is the same site - same filenames - you could easily redirect site1.com/filename.html to site2.com/filename.html, site1.com/file2.html to site2.com/file2.html with wildcard matching. IF the structure is different, you could redirect individual filenames - site1.com/file.html to site2.com/somefile.html. Ask your host to park site1.com on top of site2.com. They should be able to set you up and give you the info you need to then redirect everything correctly for their config. If it is an apache server, you will be able to do this in your .htaccess file. You will need to change the nameservers for site1.com to the nameservers for site2.com, unless they are already on the same nameservers.
and do i need to keep hold of site1 for ever? i want to pass on the value (like pr and inbound links) to site2 and then just lose site1 ? Or do i need to keep site1 forever ?
I'd keep it until you are certain the urls are out of the search engines... If you have links to site1 and they are valuable, keep it or get the links changed.