Hello, I am currently working on a site for a client. The site currently uses URL Rewriting, but it's kind of sucky, no use of keywords anywhere. ex: www.site.com/products/c235.html I would like to rewrite the site, using keywords in URL's. Now, the problem is that the site has already 700 pages indexed, but no inbound link job has been done, so the site does not have any competitive positions. The site is also relatively new, beginning of fall approximately. I know I have to use 301's, so that SE's replace the old pages with the new ones. However, I am wondering about the speed of the process. How much time for the SE's to desindex the pages? How much time to index them again? How much time to give them the same weight that they used to have? If someone has a general idea, that would be appreciated a lot!
If you don't have any important incoming links to any pages, or getting alot of traffic from any particular pages, then don't worry about 301'ing any of them. If you do have any high traffic pages, just 301 those. G will index your new stuff within a reasonable amount of time, and eventually drop the old stuff. Get yourself a nice 404 page though
I think before a duplicate content penalty is imposed google will visit both the pages to check for 301 redirects. If there are none in place then a penalty may be given.