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I'm in the process of changing my Domain name. I have requested webmasters to change the URL in the links but less than half have responded so far. I haven't yet coded the 301 redirect. I didn't want to do the redirect until most of the links had been changed but if they pass through I probably should do it now rather than wait how ever long for the links to be changed. The site contents are indentical and I fear a penalty.
Its a two edge sword. I don't want to keep these two sites going too long and lose my SERPs position (#1 in many KW) for duplicate sites, but I also don't want to lose my SERPs because my link structure for the new site is not yet strong enough.
I will have to decide but what do you think? Should I do the redirect right away and trust that the links will pass through or wait a little longer to see if more of the important links get changed?
Whenever I've done a 301 redirect, Google caught up with it right away and the links to the prior site were credited to the new site that was the object of the redirect. Other search engines take longer, but that had no effect because both stayed up. Teoma took a long time, Inktomi took a long time - Google's quick with it.
My thought would be that there's more risk from leaving two sites up with identical content than there would be with redirecting. Google has no problem with 301's - personally, if I move a site or a page the 301 goes up the same day.
Personally, I won't take unnecessary chances with duplicate content on two sites if I've got any say over it.
One more quick question and then I will shut up. Do I need to do a redirect for each file or can I just do it to the main page?
On the other hand (and I am not an expert and the ways of doing it vary) if you have pages in the index other than the home page, you should put suitable parameters on the 301 redirect so that it picks up the rest of the URL.
ie ensure if you have listings in Google for pages such as www.myoldsite.com/directory/specific123.htm, you need to effect the 301 in such a way that a link to that page is redirected to www.mynewsite.com/directory/specific123.htm (assuming that you are retaining the site directory structure).
There are a few threads on here going into more detail about how to do this. How depends I think on your server setup etc...
I recently switched domains (at the end of Feb), and thought I would share my experience in relation to Google.
After registering my new domain and making sure the DNS entry had propagated around the world, I put a 301 permanent redirect in the .htaccess file on my old webspace (just one row for root). I figured I'd get the move completed before the dance.
Following the Feb (March!) Google update, my old site was (is) still listed, but my new site is also listed (much lower down the SERPS). Strangely, Freshbot visits the new site and not the old one. The new one is unranked for PR (greyed out).
Just thought I'd let you know that, if my experience is typical, things don't always go completely smoothly.
Google will eventually get everything figured out with a 301, but it doesn't always happen right away. It's ver common to go a couple of cycles with Google showing both old and new, or even dropping both for awhile.
If you put up a 301 and then get to work on getting your most important links updated as soon as possible, you will run into less potential problems.
