Afraid of losing PR when changing page address

[member22]

Hi,

I have subpages with a PR of 4 and would like to change my webaddress ( see below ) http://www.example.com/mainmenu/submenu.html

I would like to take the mainmenu out and have http://www.example.com/submenu.html. However I am afraid that if I do that my subpages that have a PR of 4 are going to loose it ? and I don't know if the new ones will get a PR again of 4 and how long it will take.

Thanks,

[edited by: tedster at 7:24 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2009]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[tedster]

If you're concerned about toolbar PR - the new url will not show any until the next official PR update. Now let's talk about REAL PR.

If you create technically correct 301 redirects from the old urls to the new, and if you avoid canonical problems, then most of the PR will eventually transfer (after a period of trust checking on Google's side).

If the source of the PR is external backlinks directly to those pages, then write to the webmasters an get as many as possible to change their link. That will go far toward minimizing the PR dip.

If the source of the PR is mostly internal links, be absolutely certain you don't break up your existing link structure when you make this technical change.

And finally - don't change the page urls unless you absolutely MUST. If this is only for making the address look prettier, then forget about it. There are too many gremlins living under that bridge, and you're right to be afraid.

[member22]

Ok thank you that is what I thought, I won't change anything !