How to redesign and transfer a site

[bgmv]

In the next few weeks I will be building a new site for my domain business. I will also be transferring the content to a new domain. The current site is a PR4 - how do i preserve the PR, is it even possible? Should I just keep the existing site as is, and start from scratch on a new domain or should I use a redirect?

When redoing a site, what is the proper recourse to making changes without losing SERP rankings, use an under construction page? If the site goes blank G will know and that will affect my rankings, how can I avoid this from an SEO perspective.

Thanks,
Ben

 

[enlytend]

1) Make sure your current site is in webmaster tools and verified.
2) Set up the new site/domain. DO NOT PULL THE PLUG ON THE OLD SITE YET. If you're still testing, block search bots until you're ready to go live so you don't get dinged for dupe content or get any "under construction" stuff indexed.
3) When you're ready to go:
a) Unblock the search bots on the new site(if you had locked them out)
b) Verify it in webmaster tools
c) Set up a 301 (permanent) redirect from your old site to the new. Ideally, every page on your old site should be permanently redirected to the corresponding page on the new site or some other logical location.
d) Do a "change of address" in webmaster tools
e) Notify link partners of the change so they can change the URL in their links.
4) NOW you can get rid of the old site. Keep the domain with the redirect for at least 6 mos or so. Longer, if there are links to the old URL that will never be changed.

Expect some temporary ranking disruptions while everything gets sorted out - they should bounce back (unless you made some other change that could cause them to drop.)

 

[bgmv]

enlytend - thanks once again...much appreciated!

 

[Smiler]

Wow, Thats a long process. But thanks for sharing the information it might be handy one day.

 

[espis147]

enlytend defined every thing well..This is really very appreciative. Thanks a lot!