301 Redirects and Google

Hi all, I have a quick question about when it's best to use 301 redirect and how google interprets it.

Basically I had built up a fairly extensive blog that was also well respected by search engines (old.html). I then moved the blog to a new domain (new.html). I then added a 301 redirect from to new.html in the htaccess file at old.html.

Does google now still see new.html as the old site but at a new domain and will it have a major effect on my search rankings etc?

I have looked around for an answer but have got pretty wrapped up/confused with all the different redirection options (mod_rewrite etc)

Thanks

Sam

Well the answer is not a simple yes or no.

It can take a while for it to pass over TBH it's not a simple o Google has crawled my site and thus the redirect has worked.

Some sites can take a couple of weeks and others can take 6 months plus.

I did my brother-in-laws for him, cancolization redirect that is, and I think his was either just before 6 months or just after the 6 months. His site has a PageRank of 3.

Now there is not a 100% way you can tell and 1 indication, and is the 1 I use to tell, is to check the amount of pages indexed at both.

Now with sperate sites this is harder than with concalization issues.

www. and non www.

When they sync I class it as it has happened if there is still a discrepancy as in www. has 640 pages indexed and non www. has 700 pages indexed I class it as still in loue.

From what I know the time differance is down to -
1. Size of the site, as in if it is bigger it happens faster,
2. Trust
3. Equity.

Now I imagine there are more factors that go into it but from what I have seen there are the top 3.

Can this screw your rankings.
Yes.

The equity is basically suspended until the redirect is sorted out, suspended equity means a hit in the SERPs where equity matters.

Remember relevance comes first then equity and you still may have good SERPs if you pages have good content.

Now what ever you do do not change the redirects back as this is then a new redirect and thus a new time period to start again from and will take longer.

What I would do is get more links to the new domain and this will give you more equity in the mean time for the new domain and thus SERPs.

What this will do aswell is when the equity is passed from the old domain to the new domain is give you a boost overall as both the new equity you get during this time frame and the old equity will merge into 1.

But unless you can not help it, do not get links to the old domain, point any new links to the new domain from now on.

Hope that has cleared it up for you.

Jaza

thanks for this great replY!

I will have a proper proper read through it and if I need to make any changes I will. Whatever I do I will keep an eye on it....it may even be more beneficial for me to almost start again from scratch so to speak and the new domain is an opportunity to do this.

I will monitor it