Re-directing to /shop -- should I?

Prior to installing and expanding my Zen cart, which is located in the /shop folder, I had my non e-commerce website located at .com. As time passed, both main pages were incorporated into the same site as the Home page and the Shop Home page. This is obviously redundant. (not too mention it splits incoming links between the two, lower page rank on both)

As I understand it, using cPanel I can do a permanent re-direct from the .com to /shop. My question is: Would there be any negative effects to that action? Would it disturb the almighty Google, for example? And would the 400 or so incoming links to the .com then automatically re-direct to the /shop as well, or would I risk losing them?

As they say: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, it ain't broke, it's just not as efficient as it could be but I don't want to cause myself problems unnecessarily either. I'd appreciate any comments.

Thanks

Are you currently using the site that's in the root? Why don't you move the Zen Cart to the root directory. It isn't that difficult. Simply move (or copy) all the folders and files to the root and edit admin/includes/configure.php and includes/configure.php to reflect the change.

Hi Mary Ellen - Thanks for responding.

Hmmm... Your suggestion makes good sense. (I think :huh:) A couple of questions/comments, though: Currently located at the root is the original home page (BeadedLily.com/public_html/index.htm) for beadedlily.com, which I continue to update but which is redundant. The Zen-based shopping cart is located at BeadedLily.com/public_html/shop/. To do what you suggest, I would eliminate BeadedLily.com/public_html/index.htm and copy the entire contents of the /shop folder into my /public_html, correct?

Would I then do a re-direct of BeadedLily.com/public_html/shop to BeadedLily.com/public_html/? (There are quite a few incoming links)

Also, when you say to edit admin/includes/configure.php and includes/configure.php to reflect the change, is that any instance of the term /shop? (a cursury glance reveals 8 instances in the admin/includes)

Thanks - Tim

If you have incoming links to /shop/ then you would want to do the permanent redirect after moving the files to the root.

I'm currently considering doing basically the same thing, although I'm not quite ready yet. The difference is the the store is actually on a subdomain. Also, the SSL is for the subdomain, not the whole site. I'm wondering if I'd be better off to redirect to the subdomain, or move to the main domain and change the SSL. If I move it to the main domain and change the SSL, would it be better to wait until it is about time to renew the SSL? any ideas and thoughts appreciated.
Thanks,

Melissa
http://store.equineshop.biz

That's a good point about the SSL - I hadn't thought of that. I think what I'll do for the time being is just re-direct the root to the /shop folder. It's not the end result that I want, however, it basically means dealing with a single page (index.htm at the root) or the entire contents of the store, including config files, ssl etc.