Swapping Sites. What about previously indexed pages

I am a bit challenged with something. I frequently do site revisions and encounter this issue. I am doing a site for a tuscany cooking school whose current site looks like crap. All the pages are .html files and the new site is completely done in .asp files. In doing some research, I see many of the old files are nicely indexed, regardless of how crappy they look. What should I do? Include all of these crappy pages in the new site but just put a link on each one saying the page has moved?

Gee Whiz..... you sound like one of those artsy fartsy webdesigners. Google spiders can't "see" those pages and so they are ranked on the basis of backlinks and relevance - not on the basis of how good they look.

So, if you are making the pages pretty your goal should also be to IMRPOVE the rankings. That's the other 1/2 of site redesign. And, if you take down those butt ugly pages be sure you aren't abandoning any backlinks.

From the sound of your question I think that you need to study SEO until your skills there are equal to your design abilities.

I think my reference to the other site looking like crap really effected the responses. Let me clarify a couple of things. First, I don't have an artistic bone in my body. Second, I have been going going over this new site with a fine tooth comb to optimize it as best I can for Search Engine considerations. I am a one man show so I have to do both design and optimization. On the new site, I've targeted keyword phrases on different "gateway" pages, I checked keyword density over and over and over again, I've named EVERY file with keywords, using "-" to seperate words, I've put in both alt and title tags, the source code is clean as a newborn babies bottom, nicely formatted and near every page validates as per W3 standards. Regarding the asp pages, there is a lot that can be done with ASP, or PHP for that matter (aren't they variations of the same thing, dynamic page generation). For example, I have a page for my clients recipes. Its one page, but that one page can be indexed over and over and over again, using two variables to change the content ( www.mysite.com/italian-recipe.asp?category=3&recipe=8485 ) That will index no? And so will category 8 and recipe 3344? If not, then I missed something with my previous post using this forum... Anyway, in a nutshell, I've busted my butt to cross all the t's and dot all the i's on this one. I'm not trying to play games, nor game the system. I am just trying to apply myself and become as good of an all around "web designer/master" as I can. I'm supporting myself while going to college online at UoP (I live in Budapest Hungary) with my web design. I CARE about my clients and their livelihood. Really, I CARE about them. THis client for example is counting on my efforts to make an impact on their fledgling business. They MAY not survive the coming year. So, in summation, I think what I will do is this. I will import as many of the old .html files into the new site, I will transfer each page's content to a templated .html file that is "cleaned" up, making sure to include all meta tags and keyword content. I will place a <div> above the content with a large margin-bottom and in that div, I will put a link that says this page has moved, GO HERE. So when they come to one of those pages, the old content will still be there, just "pushed" way down the page and all they will see is a simple "GO HERE" link. Ok, now I'm winded. In closing, let me share the two sites with you - the "old" (crappy) one is here - www tastytuscany . com and the new one is
www . tmhdesign .com/tasty