Life of website page in Google's index

[ncsu98]

Hi, I'm trying to get clarity on a particular issue. I've researched but can't seem to find a clear answer.

If one of my website's pages is ranking in Google, and then we later implement some programming on that page to direct the Googlebot to a different page, would Google then purge the original page out of the index once it spiders the new page and adds it to the index? My initial thought is "yes" -- this page has changed, so Googlebot grabs the new page (no need to hang on to the old).

I recently had someone challenge me on this and say the original page would still stay in Google's index. So, in theory, the old page and the new page to which Googlebot is directed could both be hanging out in the index. Who's right?

[Terabytes]

It seems to take quite a while for an "older" page to be removed from the index...

So....I suppose both of you are correct...to a point...

both pages will remain in the index for a period of time...I still have pages that are years old in Y...pages that are months old in G...

however the old one will eventually fall off...

how long it takes for the old page to fall off is up for debate...
you can use 301's to get the page out faster probably...

or you can just wait...

Tera

[ncsu98]

Thanks, Tera. . I appreciate the response. The SEO marketer who told me this information is hoping to A-B test between an old page and an updated page. Based on what you've told me, it sounds uncertain and kind of a gamble since we don't know how long the old page will be hanging around. Not sure if there's a way to do a true a-b test for the exact same page in the natural search results.