General 301 Redirect Questions

[joshman85]

I've got several questions about 301 redirects:

1 - When redirected, does the old info (page rank, etc) transfer to the new site?

2 - Do 301's need to be kept indefinitely or can they be taken down after a period of time?

It seems to me that if the page rank and things are transferred after a crawl, its unnecessary to keep the 301s in place. Is this thinking incorrect?

Sorry for the basic questions, I've just gotten into doing SEO and this subject has come up.

Thanks
Josh

[tedster]

Hello joshman85, and welcome to the forums.

1. Eventually a 301 redirect will usually transfer PageRank and link juice. However it's not always quick, especially if a site establishes many new redirects at one time. Some webmasters use redirects in an effort to game the search results, so it seems like Google does some trust checking before letting the link juice flow through a 301.

2. If the old url has backlinks from other domains, then the 301 should stay in place indefinitely, or will you cut off that backlink power.