Changing a Domain Name

Starting over with incoming links

[Jane_Doe]

I had to change the domain name on a site last month that had pretty good rankings for its keywords. The site had about 500 or so incoming links.

I'm just curious as to what will happen in the Google rankings next month. It will obviously take a long time to get that many links either changed over or replaced. Webmasters for the linking sites have updated about 30 or so of the high PR links so far. The Zeal listings and Yahoo listings have been updated but none of the ODP listings have been updated yet. (Does anyone have any average time frame on how long it takes to get ODP listings to get changed?)

I know Google takes "recency" (sp?) into account in its algo. Has anyone else been through this before? Any chance that 30 new incoming links to a new site will count as well as 500 links to a site several years old? I am just curious and bracing myself as to how much of a rankings drop to expect next month. I'm mentally prepared to expect the worst and anything above that will be a nice surprise.

[Travoli]

can you permanently redirect the old domain to the new one? that helps a ton.

[Jane_Doe]

I can't do a permanent redirect. The original domain is on cheapie type web space where I didn't have my own domain. I don't have any technical options on my old account there except standard HTML pages. I know I should have moved the site years ago when the traffic started picking up. I was just too lazy and now I'm paying the price for procrastinating.