changing your domain name

[scorpion]

If you have a site indexed in Google and you want to change the url of that site permanently using a rewrite that shows as 301 - movied permanently, will Google index your new domain name and transfer the corresponding pagerank and indexed pages to the new domain name?

[matuloo]

I need to move one of my sites completely to a new domain, it is already indexed by google although not completely on the old domain and I dont know what to do now.

If I just copy the site to the new domain and leave the old one online, what will happen? I assume that some of the 2 domains will get a penalty due to duplicate content, but is this a penalty a ban or just the filter will only show one site?

Any suggestions on what should I do?

[twilight47]

I apologize, others at this forum know much more than I, but I believe that such a change in URL will mean Google will have to reindex your site and it will take a little while (a month or two) to reestablish pagerank, assuming your links are pointing in the right directions. However, it's currently hard to say how much pagerank is weighted.
Their may be more info in a site search of Webmaster World.

[scorpion]

Another question is if the new domain is on another server.

Would this be the proper way to do it:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} [^.]*olddomain\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}!^/olddomain/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [newdomain.com...] [R=301,L]

OR

should you do it like this:

Redirect permanent [oldsite.com...] [newsite.com...]