google 301 redirect problem

it could be affecting your ranking

[Coldrum]

I'm not so sure 301 redirects are still working in google.

My reasoning is that one of my sites has dropped considerably in the rankings.

About 7 months ago I used a 301 redirect on 4 old sites to a main site after it had previously been hosting the identical content on four different domains.

For 3 months this worked and the main site enjoyed good rankings, that is, until the latest update.

After the site dropped on this latest algo update I performed a site search on the main site and the old domain is now appearing in the main sites results! So I performed another site search and it has 21 pages cached from may last year. There are links pointing to the old domain and this seems a likely reason why google is refusing to give it up (as it has now recognised that the 3 other old domains are not in use now)

So the way I see it, there are two options -

either try a javascript forwarder.

Or try the google remove url tool on the old domain?

Has anyone used this tool before, any warnings, advice etc..

I will post the results here

[McMohan]

301 is still essential if your old domain had good link popularity and a dmoz, Yahoo listing.

Would be curious to know, while doing a 301 from www.abc.com to www.xyz.com, is it essential to redirect from abc.com to www.xyz.com and from xyz.com to www.xyz.com?

Mc