301 Redirects and SEO

I am currently using about 30 or so 301 redirects in my .htaccess file, to cover the main pages google is still indexed to. Most of them take the visitor to the main page, but a couple take them to the 'new' page (if it was moved etc when I was still restructuring things).

In terms of the visitors, as well as SEO (if it would even make a difference), would it make more sense to leave this as is ? Or make all 301 redirects go to a special page (moved.htm for example) which informs the user that the link is no longer active, please adjust bookmarks etc.. with a sitemap to easily jump to the section of my page they would like? The sitemap might help the indexing I think if google keeps checking the (old and no longer existing) pages it has in its index for updates, since there might be a better chance of it crawling the other sections with a sitemap.

With the same thing in mind, I _could_ just make a sitemap on my 404 error page.

Any thoughts ?

You have to think like the visitor... if he's looking for bleu widgets and get a green widgets page, he might just leave.
If he's looking for blue widget and endup on your home page, he might just think it's where google found the info and will look for it.
If he looks for blue widgets and gets a page moved... why not send me to the new page... but might go to the new page.
If he looks for blue widgets and find your map then like the home page he will look for it since he was sent there.

I send visitor straight to the new page if possible.
If the page was trashed, then I send him to the home page.

Jocelyn - good things to think about!

requiem - You mean making the 301 redirect to a 410 error page ? like :

Redirect 301 /oldpage.htm http://www.templeofdagon.com/errors/410.htm ?
(after I make a 410.htm)

If not, how can I make the browser give a 410 (gone) when it is allready generating a 404 ?

I gotcha.. So the server/browser never actually interpret a 401. It is merely text the user sees.