Moving Threads and/or Posts

[JDM6763]

I'm not sure if this is an SEO thing. I currently have a "General Discussion" topic on my forum. I wasn't sure what specific topics to make on my forum so I've just had everyone create threads in that forum. As I add new forum topics, and I wanted to move old threads/posts to the new forum topic, is there a preferred way of doing this? For instance, should I move with a temporary redirect or a permanent redirect?

If I want to delete old threads, should I do a permanent hard delete or a soft delete? I'd like to keep the amount of 404s, et al down.

Or am I just totally off the mark here? Please advise.

Thanks in advance!

[briansol]

I generally do a 30 day expiring redirect.
remember, vbseo will redirect traffic automatically.
but, people looking for their thread will want the redirect for browsing.

deleting is up to you.
soft sets a flag in the db to 'deleted' but the record exists.
hard delete actually deletes the record from the dbtable.

neither will have any bearing on seo, as both will display 'invalid topic specified' vb error

[Mert Gökçeimam]

If it is a new thread i leave a 1 day redirect , if it is an old thread i usually leave a 1 week redirect.