Changing Forum URLs

Ok we have decided to change the url of our website.....bascially to attract more members, but what's the best way to do this?

I know if I do a 302 redirect the search engines should follow it, index the new URL and keep the PR.

But how do I do this? Can I do a one for one redirect? Meaning:

http://www.oldsite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9238

does a 302 to:

http://www.newsite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9238

Any help anyone can provide would be very helpful.

Thanks!

Personally, I'd use a 301 redirect.. It tells the spiders the move is permanent.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.oldsite.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Should work, just make sure to test it..

Also depending on who your domain is through the Cpanel if they have it should have a setting to do that for you. I believe godaddy has that feature also.

And as mentioned above I would use a 301 redirect.

Yep I agree with these guys.

yeah your best bet is to rewrite the url itself, everything else will take care of itself.

Thanks guys.

I've never used rewrite before but I'm sure I can figure it out.

I've not had any luck with this. I think I'm missing something really basic.

I'm running apache 2.2 on Windows Server 2003.

Does anyone know of a page that details instructions of getting mod_rewrite to work on windows?

Or does anyone else have any idea how to do the same thing with IIS?

Thanks again!