How Carfeful Should I Be 301-ing an Entire Website?

[aok88]

Unfortunately, I have no choice but to 301 an old, established, 8000-page website to a new domain (which is also an old domain - it's actually an older than my original domain - but doesn't have a fraction of the inbound links).

I read somewhere that you need to be very careful doing this - < that after changing sitewide links to point to new pages, Google might put a site back into the sandbox. >

Has anyone else experienced 301ing an entire website to a new domain? How did you do it? Did anyone have a problem with any aspect of it such as getting put into the sandbox because of too many inbound links being created all at once?

[edited by: tedster at 8:34 pm (utc) on Jan. 28, 2008]
[edit reason] paraphrase a quote [/edit]

[tedster]

There's a thread on this exact topic in our Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page. See Advice on moving a site to a different domain [webmasterworld.com].

For avoiding the sandbox,or at least keeping it short, you're in better shape using an established domain, especially one that you have already owned for a while, than you would be with a newly purchsed domain name. However, anytime you move to an entirely new domain, there is reason to be cautious - it's something I try to avoid. If you must do it, then try to get everything technically correct the first time, especially avoiding any duplicate urls or chains of 301 redirects.

And do plan, financially, for a dip in traffic. It might be short and it might be a bit longer, but it's almost always part of the picture.