How do you mod rewrite one level categories to two level categories ?

Question

Say on my old site I have one level categories of products, with one category being "BMW Cars".. inside of that, I have some products : "328i" , "M3", "M5", "X5"... so basically it is a big mix of everything - cause in the beginning we didnt separate the product line into finer categories.

Now we are building a new site, and have a 2 level structure... now we have top level "BMW automobiles" and sub cats like "BMW sedans", "BMW sports cars" "BMW SUV's"..

Key question -> where do we rewrite the old "BMW Cars" category page ? do we point it to the top level "BMW automobiles"? That seems logical but: what happens in another example if most of the products in our current site fit into one of the new site's subcategories, but has a small percentage that don't truly belong:

Say our old BMW Cars had 90% sedans and 10% SUV's, would it be more appropriate to forward it to our new top level catch all "BMW automobiles", or is it ok to point it to sedans, even though some products don't belong (obviously SUV's)...

what if it is 80/20, or 95/5... what percent is the cut off or should we always point to the top level to be "safe"

Answer 1

Don't look at the percentages of cars. Look at the percentages of visits. If 90% of the BMW's on your website are sedans and 10% SUV's, but 95% of your visitors are searching for SUV's instead of sedans then it may be more appropriate to redirect to SUV's instead.

But personally I would just redirect to the top level "BMW automobiles". That is the least surprising to people who bookmakered the old "BMW Cars" page and visit it again after the change. No cars will suddenly have disappeared from their view.

Answer 2

More nearly 100/0 is a clickthrough page with the minimum of styling and information. Fast to load and with two prominent links 'sedans' and 'all cars', if you're that bothered. You could save a cookie so that, despite inconvenincing your customer the first time, if they ever go to the same link, the page can auto-redirect from then onwards.