FYI... 301 redirect of 15 year-old money page has been successful!

[pshea]

FYI for those who wonder:

My #1 money producing page needed to a new url to update it to current trend. Page has been rock steady for 15 years with that name, which was a number.

Old and new page identical. Via .htaccess to 301 redirect, I hit the button 4 days ago. Today, the new page is in the SERPS at it's old position.

Grateful that something worked as expected.

[aristotle]

At various times in the past Google has indicated that a small amount of "pagerank" is lost in a 301 redirect. Not sure if they always said "pagerank" or if they sometimes said "link juice" or something else. The usual speculation is that about 10%-15% of the link power (or whatevr you call it) is lost.

[JesterMagic]

How far did the page drop before it returned?

[pshea]

It was unaffected for 3 days following the htaccess change, disappeared entirely for about 24 hours, then reinstated with the new url at the former position sometime on day 4/5.

[aristotle]

Old and new page identical.

It might not have been as successful if the pages weren't identical. Not sure if small differences would matter, but if there were big differences it might not work as well.

[pshea]

aristotle, I agree. that is why I felt this was post-worthy. In theory, you can 301 an exact copy and not lose rank. This validates that.