Information Architecture

According to http://webdesign.about.com/od/informationarchitecture/Information_Architecture.htm, Information architecture is a process for describing and classifying information. On Web pages it is often used to plan the structure and navigation of an entire site. A simplified view of an information architecture is the taxonomy of a Web site. Information architects help plan and maintain the structure of a Web site.

I was particularly interested in finding out more about site redirects and did some research on how that would work with IA. In reality, there is a true art to appropriately redirecting expired, non-existent, or relocated pages. According to some research that I did, you want to utilize 301 permanent redirects in the following case scenarios:

1) Where the page has moved to another new location
2) Where it is possible for visitors to be confused or frustrated by a 404 error page
3) Where an additional page matches the content of the expired/deleted page

There are both good and bad uses of redirects…
But there is one key question to always keep in mind: Is it good for the visitor? In many cases, 301′ing an entire site is NOT good for the visitor but it definitely is great for the site owner desiring to cash in on accrued PageRanks. As a common rule, permanently redirecting a site may not benefit you as much as you would think it would. It’s better to test by initially redirecting a few pages, and at times it’s best to leave the site as is for a specific duration with a message about potential changes. Depending on the situation, it may even make sense to leave the site as a whole and build it out separately.