can/should a 301 redirect be used for this?

[tim@getdim]

I have several pages of links for seo purposes...

every one of these pages have a nav template already in them for navigating from one links page to another and so on. this template goes from 1-100.
there are nowhere near 100 pages of links, but the number is constantly growing.

say you click the link for page 41, only to find it does not exist yet. there are only 25 pages thus far.
can i use a 301 to load page 1 when you click page 41?
Is this a good use of a 301 or is there a better way to handle this so i stop getting so many 404 errors in my analytics?

I know someone is going to ask, so let me say it now.

the reason there are 100 nav links is so every time i make a new page for links, i dont have to constantly change the nav. i can copy and paste the entire nav structure without having to change anything, thereby saving me ALOT of time.

[Sperlock]

301 is going to be for something that is moved to another place permanently. That's only good if the page is in place, just with a different URL than it originally was. Ideally, don't have the link show up at all until the page is ready. If that is not possible for some reason, 302 - "Moved Temporarily" I think would be a better choice than 301.

[tim@getdim]

Thing is, it is probably going to be several months before the pages are ready.

example:
right now they go up to page 25.
i want to reduce the 404's by redirecting pages 35-100.

this way i leave myself around 10 pages for expansion, but its unlikely i will expand by more than ten pages in the next month, so i redirect everything after that.

by using redirects i avoid having to update the nav table in 25+ pages, i can simply adjust my .htaccess file.

you think 302's are still the best way to go?

[RvanD85]

I find this an odd way of working. It is not possible to build the nah dynamically? Or else make onefile with your navigation and the just include it in your files? Then you only have to add a new link in one file and you will not get any 404.

I would really suggest to change the way you work. This will probably save you some time and mess in the future.
And assaid earlier, don't use 301 for the redirect

[ralph.m]

Yes, I agree with the above. There will be better ways to do this. The ideal would be to use a CMS that automates the boring bits like this. Every time you added a new page, a link to it would automatically appear on the main page.

[tim@getdim]

the main part of the site is built with wordpress, howvever, these links pages were started long before that and i dont want to clutter the pages list in the CMS with all these links pages.
also the links pages are not meant to be viewed by visitors to the site, only by search engines.
I really have no idea how to dynamically build the nav. and as far as having the nav in a separate page and including it, i would still have the problem of the search engines running into 404's bc they would scan the nav and follow links to pages that dont exist yet.

the only logical solutions i can come up with are
#1 disable the links to the pages that dont exist yet - which would require me to add the link to every page, every time i add a new page.
#2 use 302's to redirect links to everything 5-10 pages past what i currently have built.

if you would like to see exactly what im talking about, try http://liveoutloudproductions.com/Links/Links1.html
these are all pages of reciprocal links.

[Sperlock]

I believe that search engines will not look favorably upon sites that try to provide a different view to search engines than what real people will get - there's a chance the site will be penalized for that.

[RvanD85]

Create a table in database, put link and description in there for each link.
Create a PHP file I.e. Links.php. Count all records in database with PHP, divide it by the amount of links and round it up. That is how many pages you need at the moment. Create a loop which creates the pages, route them to links.php?page=1, links.php?page=2, etc. Define the links that should be retrieved, I.e. If you are on page 5, select link, description from links order by id asc limit 5-1*amount off links per page, amount off links. Loop through them to echo them to page. New pages will be created automatically when needed. So no 301 needed and no 404 displayed.

[TechnoBear]

I believe that search engines will not look favorably upon sites that try to provide a different view to search engines than what real people will get - there's a chance the site will be penalized for that.

Agreed - and vast numbers of pages which consist of nothing but links will do no good either to you or the sites you are linking to. Google is very likely to regard your site as nothing but a link farm and you'll sink without trace in the SERPs. If this is "for seo purposes", as you said in your first post, I strongly suggest you ditch the entire project and put your time and resources into something more effective.

[tim@getdim]

experience tells me the opposite of what you are saying.
ive been doing this for 2 years, and done quite alot of researching in that time.
a "link farm" is something completely different.

not to mention that this discussion has gotten way off of the original thread topic.

my question was about 301's. this has been answered. the discussion is getting now into an area of endless debate.

I will now unsubscribe form this thread as my question has been resolved.