URL redirect

September 1st, 2005, 12:32 am

Hi Everybody
I have a domain PR 3 ranking very well on Google mostly due to the link pop; on-site seo is almost inexistent.My main problem is that the site looks like crap but to make it more surfer-friendly it would mean to change it completely.I have another site indexed with PR2 ranking nowhere and i want to redirect the first site to this one .My main concern is that Google will index the second site that ranks nowhere and will drop from SERPs the first one.What kind of redirects should i use in order for Google to still index the site that currently ranks well and to be safe from any penalty? Any advice or any other suggestion is welcome.Thank you for your help .

September 1st, 2005, 6:40 am

301 Redirect in your .htaccess file.

September 1st, 2005, 8:31 am

From what i understand , by using a 301 redirect the spider indexes the destination url. The site that ranks well has totally different content than the one i redirect to.If google indexes the new site (by using the 301 redirect) ,what happens to the features of the old one( link popularity,etcetera) that currently rank well? it will pass to the new site? Will google consider the new site to be the old one but with a new "face"?

September 2nd, 2005, 5:39 am

Yes, if you use a 301 or a 302 google will consider it the same site, it just determines which domain is the valued domain. A 301 will carrie its value and place it on the destination domain, while a 302 will reverse that and place the value on originating domain. But if the 302 is redirected to a high value site, it may still choose to show the destination in serps.

September 2nd, 2005, 6:16 am

what if the the domain that curently ranks well is a free domain ? It is actually a free blog ; how can i implement 301?

September 4th, 2005, 5:25 pm

You can't through Godaddy unless you buy hosting, and then that wouldn't make much sense. That however is the best way to go... break down and buy the 4 dollar a month hosting.... and you can host several websites if you choose.