Yes, this change had been slowly occuring and many are quite upset about it. You can't even move a site any more without them thinking something is up. I've been moving to meta refreshes...

Hmmm...

I just moved a site using RedirectPermanent in my .htaccess file. Before doing that, I brought up the new site (identical content except for the self-referencing URLs) and got ODP and most incoming link sites to update my URL.

After seeing Fast and Google index the new site, I Disallowed those 'bots in the old site.

A few more SEs which are important to my traffic finally indexed the new site, and so I deleted the old site except for a custom 404 page with a single HTML link to the new site, plus a 10-second Meta-Refresh. Both of these are really intended for users with outdated bookmarks, but the HTML link may help some of the 'bots which never seemed to pick up on the 301.

Google picked up the change during the May update cycle, and transferred the listings over with PR intact - No problem.

Fast lived up their name, and indexed the new site within a week.

This is a non-profit site, so we don't do PPC or PFI. As a result, I can't say what Teoma, Overture, AV, and Ink will do. They have found the new site, but it appears only if you search for the URL, not for any search terms. Hopefully, that behaviour will settle out when they see the old site in 404 status.

I suspect that at least some of the sites which have had 301 problems may not have implemented the redirects properly, or possibly left the old site up too long after being re-indexed with the new site address. There might be a temptation to do this if the new site PR is not as high as the old one, but I'd recommend against leaving the old site in 301 status too long.

The new wmw Header Checker will certainly help in this first case!

Bottom line is that sequencing the move using controls in .htaccess and robots.txt worked fine for me vis-a-vis Google and Fast. YMMV. Hopefully, the others will get it right soon, too.

Take care,
Jim