Unsuccesfull 301 redirect

[designaweb]

I just tried to do a succesfull 301 redirect, since a legal dispute forced me to move my website to a new domain name. I did get to keep the old domain, so I was able to use a 301 redirect to redirect my old visitors to the new site.

Despite of what I read here, this method should transfer your PR as well as your SERP rankings... Well I can tell you now they do not. The new website has a VERY similair structure to the old site, so on page optimisation should not play an important factor here. None the less, my rankings have dropped dramatically... Where I took N#1 slot for most targeted phrases, they now rank between 10-15. Any comments on this my fellow masters of the web?

Here's the 301 redirect I used...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

[edited by: pageoneresults at 9:17 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2004]
[edit reason] Examplified URI Reference (mynewdomain) [/edit]

[jdMorgan]

> Any comments on this my fellow masters of the web?

Timing is everything...

If you wanted best results, I'd have recommended:

Get the new domain indexed before doing a 301 to it (Link to it first, 301 later).

Switch all possible incoming links to the new domain before doing the 301.

Then use the 301 to catch the old links, directory lisitings, and bookmarks.

Allow 90 days for anything when dealing with search engines.

Sorry you had trouble, but a domain dispute is never pretty.

This is essentially an SEO question, so you may get more (and better) opinions in the SEO-related forums.

Jim

[designaweb]

Hi jdMorgan,

Thanks for your hints, I guess I will take them into account the next time...

About posting in an SEO forum, I did that, it was moved here ;)