Can URL redirects hurt page ranks?

[Northstar]

I have a dynamic script that changed my URLs and is redirecting to new URLs. Could this hurt my google page ranks?

[tedster]

Not usually - at least after Google has had a chance to recalculate everything and give your redirects a "trust" check to make sure you aren't playing any deceptive games. As a rule, if you are using a 301 redirect, link juice of all kinds will pass on, including PageRank. However, if you are redirecting in some other way than a 301, then you might run into problems.

If you mean actual ranking positions, then it can take a while, maybe a few weeks, for the new urls to rank where the old urls used to.

[g1smd]

Use a HTTP Header Checker and make sure that the response:

1. really is 301 and NOT 302.

2. each old URL takes one jump, and only one jump, to get to the new URL.

[lorax]

>> Could this hurt my google page ranks?

Guaranteed to change them for a short while at least. As Tedster notes, the end result of the changes will likely take days, weeks (and I'll offer months depending on market space, website particulars, etc.) to sugar off.

[Alan_G]

My '.com' site had attained a PR of 2, but to get better search visibility in the UK, I moved the site to a '.co.uk' TLD and used '301 redirects' from the original '.com' site.

Placements on search listings has definitely improved, but a count of my incoming links is much smaller and I have a PR of 0. I made the change about 1 month ago. I hope it's not too long before the changes filter through.

The '.com' url was submitted to a number of directories also, and so I'm presuming I have to write to those directories and let them know about the change or will the '301 redirects' be enough for Google to register those incoming links against the '.co.uk' TLD?

Alan

[Northstar]

I guess I should have said individual ranking positions for each page. I have a couple pages that rank well for keyword and I would hate to loose them.

[g1smd]

Toolbar PageRank will take some 3 to 6 months to appear.

Don't worry about it.