Moving a Website + Backlinks with 301-Redirect

Hello,

I want to ask how long do I have to let alive a website until every backlink is transferred to the new website.

For example. I want wo move a website from domain.com to domain2.com. For this i put a .htaccess in the old root and redirect all access to the new domain with a 301. In theory this should lead to the point that all pagerank and backlinks are moved to the new domain.

Now the question. How long do I have to keep the old domain? I mean i want that the linkjuice of all backlinks that point to domain.com are given to domain2.com. But at a time I need to drop the old domain. When can I do this without losing the old backlinkpower?

I would think that if you get rid of the old domain all of the link will be gone... even if you do a 301. You should keep the old domain and redirect it to the new one

All your old backlinks are to the old site... if you don't keep it forever then those will stop producing PR and traffic. Use canonical tags in the meantime so google doesn't punish you for duplicating the content.

Hm thats too bad. Then there isnt a real possibility to move a domain. Strange. I mean there could be different reasons to lose access to a old domain. Till now I always thought there will be a way...

yes, i think the backlink can be 'moved' to your new domain

backlink can't be moved.... because those sites are not owned by you. Unless they change the link address, the search englne will it as 404.

dnman said:

backlink can't be moved.... because those sites are not owned by you. Unless they change the link address, the search englne will it as 404.

Click to expand...

That's not true always.

dnman said:

backlink can't be moved.... because those sites are not owned by you. Unless they change the link address, the search englne will it as 404.

Click to expand...

The site is not owned by you but if you own the site at a time and redirect the site to another one google would be able to rewrite the backlinks to the new domain and leave it there.

When a new user is owning the old domain google would know that these particular backlinks are belonging to another domain.

I only mean that it could work when they want.

At least I know that a 301-backlink is taken in advance the same way like a direct backlink. Its shown up in siteexplorer of yahoo even though you cant find a direct link on the backlinksite. But when this 301 isnt available anymore... I dont have experience with that case.