Best way to say "We moved!"

How to create both a user and SE friendly page?

[fischermx]

I will be re-launching an old site in a new domain name. The content is like 200% the size of the old site and has been drastically reorganized.
The old site has just PR2 but it receives about 50/visitors/day from Google/MSN/Yahoo SERPS.
Now, to make the switch, I would want to give the users the news about the new site. I mean, placing a redirect would move them from one site to other without knowing anything about what happened.
So, I was thinking to simply put a very basic page, a rewrite module to trap any directory and parameterized pages to the root, and have some JS to redirect the user while it reads a message and see a clickable banner of the new site. So, either if the user clicks on the links or banner to the new site, or if it does nothing, it will endup in the new site. Up to here, what would a SE think about a page like this? Would this classify the page as "bad" doorway and bad karma to the new site?

Now, for SE, should I "cloak" a redirect? I mean, check the agent for most popular SE and send me a 301 to the new site?
And very important, when doing this (a 301) what happens to the PR of both sites? Will the PR of the old site be transfered to the new site? Will do nothing?
Will the old site be eaten by SE if I place this redirect?
(I'd like to reuse this old domain for other site, because it is a madeup name that can hold anything)

What would you usually do in this situation?

[j4mes]

In the same situation I think I'd probably use a 302 redirect, and also pass a variable to the new site to say the visitor has come from the old site. Then the new site can display a message to these users welcoming them in and explaining the update.

This should be SE-safe because they're pretty happy with 302s, and it keeps your users informed while also being straight into your new site (fewer lost to clicking away).

[John Carpenter]

And very important, when doing this (a 301) what happens to the PR of both sites?

We're currently 301-redirecting from an old domain name, which was PR6, to a better and shorter domain name. Shortly after the move, the old URLs were replaced in Google index by the new URLs. However, PageRank was not transferred (it went down to 1). It's been about 3 months since we moved and now it's PR3. Hope this helps.

[pixellion]

You can use a .htaccess file and put it onto the root directory. Here are the sample contents:

---BEGIN---
ErrorDocument 404 /404.shtml
Redirect permanent /oldfile.htm [newdomain.com...]
---END---

Use the content between Begin and End.

Hope that helps...

[John Carpenter]

---BEGIN---
ErrorDocument 404 /404.shtml
Redirect permanent /oldfile.htm [newdomain.com...]
---END---

I'd use 301 instead of 404 though. 404 means 'Not Found', while 301 is 'Permanently Moved'.