Where possible, use a 301 from the old pages to newer equivalents; where that's not possible, 301 to the home page.

As that may entail a truckload of work, it may be worth checking which of the pages get a significant level of visitors, and set up individual 301s, with a general one for all the others.

Also worth checking if any of the doomed pages have significant incoming links - especially section index pages, and see if any of them can be redirected.

A slightly riskier approach (in terms of visitor confusion), would be to retain the pages, but lable them 'archive', with a prominent homepage link for accidental arrivals; gradually removing internal links to those pages over a period.

Whatever you decide, a gradual approach, if possible, reduces the risk of 'sandbox' type effects (which I don't think is a big risk, anyway), and a fall back quality 404 page will help.

Do ensure that site navigation is undamaged - before you start, as well as afterward - that's always an invitation to disaster when change has to happen.

Quadrille I like that approach I use to do deletes to old products pages that were taken out of production and 301 them to a new page or product. Now I delete the add to cart buttons and add a link to a seach link for like products. I feel this works better to keep possible hits coming in as a 301 will take the pages out of the index and the possibility of traffic coming from them goes away, (as it should)
Adding that folder or pages to an achive does make sense and it shows the the progression of the companies progress in development.

Thanks for the replies.

I think we will just 301 redirect to the home pages for the pages-to-be-removed; we don’t want the pages on the site at all anymore.

This is also part of a redevelopment/rebrand of the site and will feature new content and a slightly different site structure; I was going to 301 the original site structure to map to the new one apart from the removed pages that will fall back to the default homepage.

Is there anything else i should be careful of or will this type of change be detrimental?

Thanks

Just try to stagger things as much as you can; SEs can get indigestion - and a major restructure can lead to 'sandbox'-type problems (the site being treated as a new site - with a possibility of months in limbo.

Perfect site navigation and correct, tested 301s will diminish the risk: but anyone who says there's no risk should be invited to bet their home on it ;)

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], Bart!

i would suggest you go first to the Google Search forum [webmasterworld.com] and read the "Google Hot Topics - FAQs" thread which is always pinned to the top of the list.
there are several threads referenced within that will address many of your questions.
if your questions are specific to google search you should post there.

my feeling is you should push hard to keep some relevant content for every url for which you have inbound links and take advantage of the flow with navigation to your new site structure until it get its legs.
you don't have to provide internal navigation to this content.