SEO and page redirects from a high ranking site quandary

[gazza1]

We are launching a site on a new domain that is taking the place of a group (subset) of pages in an existing domain. BUT The pages on the existing domain have really good SEO rankings in a very competitive category and we want to leverage the traffic it gets today in the best way, so....

Which of the following would be the best practice in this case (in regards to SEO)?

Modify the existing pages' content so that there are prominent calls to action that lead the users to the new domain.

Create permanent redirects for the existing pages for their counterparts on the new domain. This is more direct for the user but we don't know how it will affect the current ranking.

Something other than the above.

Many thanks for you help

Gary

[Squee]

I agree do 301 to each page and get people to the new site.

Overtime they will learn the new site domain and you will gain new links to the new site.

I just did the same thing and merged an older well ranking site into a new site a year ago, & did a bunch of 301 redirects from good high ranked pages and then I also did full global 301 from several smaller sites to the new site.

[WilliamKammer]

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd go with option #2 if you're looking to transfer your rankings from the old site to the new. Once Google reindexes everything, you should have most of your ranks back.

If you're keeping the same content on the new site and the old, then option #1 isn't really an option, unless you canonicalize the old pages, which will have the same effect on ranks as the 301s.

So then it comes down to what's better for users? Do you think they would rather clickthrough the old site and its calls to action, or would they prefer to be automatically redirected to the new property?

I would think that you would want the new website to rank instead of the old, since having the old site continue to rank would just create an extra step for users.