Redirecting a large number of URLs with htaccess or php header
- by Peter
I have undergone a major website overhaul and now have 5,000+ incoming links from search engines and external sites, bookmark services etc that lead to dead pages or 404 errors.
A lot of the pages have corresponding "permalinks" or known replacement hierarchy/URL structure.
I've started to list the main redirects with htaccess or physical files with simply a header location reidrect which is clearly not sustainable!
What would be the best method to list all of the old link addresses and their corresponding new addresses with htaccess, php headers, mysql, sitemap file or is it better to have all broken links and wait for search engines etc to re-index my site?
Are there any implications for having a large number of redirecting files for this temporary period until links are reset?