Keeping PageRank after a Site Move

One concern of Weblogs.Com users is carrying their site's Google PageRank rating to a new server, whether on Buzzword.Com or somewhere else.

Using an HTTP viewer, Phil Ringnalda noticed that our redirector was originally sending the HTTP status code 302, "Found," instead of 301, "Moved Permanently," and explained why this is important:

... if you redirect with a 302, search engines will just start requesting both, and quite often indexing both, taking forever for the new one to beat out the old one, while a 301 should switch things (including existing pagerank) over fairly quickly.

Dave Winer fixed this, which you can test by trying soap.weblogs.com or another site in the HTTP Viewer with the Auto-Follow Location checkbox deselected.

Google takes note of 301 redirects, and according to this webmaster discussion, PageRank ratings are carried over.

I haven't paid much attention to this issue. Can anyone verify that their site kept its ranking after a move to a new domain?

Manila · 2004/06/24 · 8 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Rogers,

Sadly, at this moment, the answer is no. Going to http://deanland.buzzword.com my Google page rank is zero. On the prior system the DeanLand page rank varied from 6 to 8 (mostly having to do with how often I posted and the clicks received, which have to do with content interest level and referrals).

In addition to page rank, there is the question I sent to you in an e-mail last night, which is also a Google related question, but not about page rank .

Here's the question: after the 90 day redirect period has elapsed, will pages and citations in Google that refer to addresses that Google has captured (indexed?) as:

http://blogname.weblogs.com/^&$#^igfu23

still click over (from the link showing a .weblogs.com URL within a Google search results page)to the re-named and re-indexed, yet otherwise same page, except that the URL will then be:

http://blogname.buzzword.com/^&$#^igfu23

That's the longer term Googlejuice maintenance question.

Thanks again, and repeated kudos for keeping this a very public and open discussion. Greatly appreciated.

--Dean

#1 · Dean Landsman · 2004/06/24

After 90 days, Google should have found and removed most if not all of the sitename.weblogs.com results, replacing them with sitename.buzzword.com.

I don't think the carryover of PageRank ratings happens immediately -- Google has to request the old page, get the "permanently moved" status code along with the new address, and update its database.

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2004/06/24

I think major Google PageRank calculations take 30-45 days to happen. There are small-scale calculations that happen faster, but major moves seem to be on the month scale. So the new results might not show up for a month or so.

If the redirect goes away, the PageRank transfer may too, not sure about that (again, on a month-level delay)

#3 · Seth Finkelstein · 2004/06/24

Seth is right, Google only changes PageRank every 2 months or so, since it's a rather computationally expensive offline batch process. And PR can really change: mine fell by 2 in January, perhaps because of a change in the algorithm. I wonder if 301 will really fix things, since inbound links to a URL are the main ingredient of PageRank. There are many people gaming the system and scamming Google, and bait and switch maneuvers are common. Unscrupulous site operators could establish sites with throwaway domains, get some PR, then 301 them to their affiliate farm or porno site, so I bet Google doesn't just automatically transfer the PR without taking into account other factors. Someone should ask Google Guy on Webmaster World about it, although PR details are unlikely to produce an answer from him.

#4 · Mark · 2004/06/24

From my experience Google PageRank doesn't make as much sense as before Florida update.

There are tons of sites with high PageRank that don't rank at all.

#5 · AndrewA · 2005/01/10

Page rank does matter. Its almost everything, but your site has be be SOE well for it to count. I've done a few 301's and they seem to carry over pagerank. You decide what pages rank higher the way your internal links are setup. The more internal links you have to a page the higher pr it will receive. If you have too many links on a page, it will pass little pr to other pages.. etc..

#6 · wow gold · 2005/05/20

How long Google will take to change the page-ranks ? Is it 90 days or 60 days ?

#7 · Avik · 2005/12/13

I've moved my www.vhs.org.ua to www.stereo.org.ua (the whole domain)

Now it's about 6 weeks and PR didn't change at all, though the old addresses seem to have disappeared from SERPs...

#8 · Alexander · 2006/05/10