Does Permanent 301 Redirection Affect Google PageRank?

Webmasters and Bloggers are always wondering about What will happen to their Google pagerank if they moved their blog/site to another domain? How long does it take to pass page-rank from one typical site to another redirect through 301 permanent redirection?

The answer to the former question is that “NO”. Permanent redirection will not affect your Google pagerank.

301 Redirects are used when:

1. Avoid Duplicate Content
2. Access Website with or without www
3. Changing Domain name

If you remember, I too have redirected from TheWebdale.com (having Google pagerank-3) to BlogSolute.com. While searching for the time required to get back my Google PageRank- I found a thread in Google groups saying-

301s pass PR and related signals appropriately. Usually takes a couple of weeks for things to smooth out, though.

Why doesn’t 301 Redirect Affect Ranking?

According to RFC2616, Search Engines should automatically replace the 301 URL with the destination address of the redirect and should save it as official address of the respective content.

When a page has moved permanently, Google also recommends using a 301. Strangely, the number one search engine sometimes needs several weeks, even months, to reflect this information in search results.

I thought it would take couple of months to get back my pagerank but Google is more smart, fast and intelligent than I think, isn’t it? Well, maybe Google picks up the changes within a couple weeks i.e. the time it takes to crawl the new information and URLs. But maybe by the time all this data is processed it takes longer? I am saying so because BlogSolute.com is very well indexed by Google in the mean time.

How to 301 Permanent Redirect Website?

If your server allows the use of a file. Htaccess, several techniques are available to define a 301 redirect. I would recommend using this online 301 redirect tool which generates .htaccess file for desired redirection.

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