Moving/Merging threads and posts

[DADOCTOR]

Hello,

On my site I move a lot of threads to different forums and sometimes merge them too.

There is the option to leave a redirect for the moved thread/post and usually I just leave no redirect.

Since I have installed vbseo, I want to know what is the best thing to do to optimize the indexing of threads/posts.

Should I leave a permanent redirect so I dont have indexed links opening to a page that can not be found?

I dont know what is the best option is
hope someone can help me

Thanks
Ryan

[Mert Gökçeimam]

I always choose to leave an expiring redirect.

[briansol]

leaving a redirect gives the desitnation a new ID, thus a new link.

i RARELY leave redirects.

[DADOCTOR]

Ok thanks for the advice

[paintballer.ie]

What is the general feeling on moving threads in the SEO scheme of things.

I have say a news forum that show up on the front page of vbadvanced and then after a few weeks I move that thread into it's relevant forum section.

Anything wrong with this practice? I do not leave redirects either.

[dimas]

If I'am creating new category with forums and moving the threads to that newely created forums ( the old forum I wish to delete, when all the new forums will be indexed) and I remove the old forum, just make it acessible by URL only. What is the better redirects to made?

[Brian Cummiskey]

It really depends on the date of the threads, and how your urls are set up.

new threads that i catch/mod the same day, I never leave a redirect, as they likely aren't indexed anyway.

if they are old threads, its probably best to use the permanent redirect and then just hide the forum as you suggest.

[dimas]

Anyway I use other redirects too:
RewriteRule ^[^/]+/[^0-9].*?-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)\.html vbseo.php?vbseourl=showthread.php&t=$1&page=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^[^/]+/[^0-9].*?-([0-9]+)\.html vbseo.php?vbseourl=showthread.php&t=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^[^/]+/([0-9]+).*\.html vbseo.php?vbseourl=showthread.php&t=$1 [L]