I have a client with a PR4 site that wants to do a re-branding and have the same site (content wise) migrated to another site (with a different url)...however we don't want to lose the PR4 ranking and start from 0... Is this possible to do or are we going to have to start from scratch?
You can not just switch the pr over but if you do have a redirect on the url and you put a lot of work on the new website, you should not have to much trouble. The only problem you going to have is that the pr update is going to happen in about two weeks possibly three. You better get started if you want to try to get some page rank.
How often is a PR update happening in general? I understood that PR is based on content and links. So if the content is migrated as is, this should not be a problem. Problem is with the links. We don't have so many, but still it's lots of work to contact all those links and switch them...at the same time I can't have this redirect going on forever.... what would you do?
PR is not based on content but only on back links. Haven't you seen even some parked domains having PR? As far as I know, PR updates once in three months.. Not much sure though.
Can do it by redirection but it will be fake rank and loose in the next update, only the way is change all the Bl to new site and make redirect from the old site. And wait until the Google update, this will give some rank to the new site, but can drive the traffic to the new site by redirecting
Theres this very popular indian movie portal .. indiafm.com .. its now bollywoodhungama.com .. the new site also has very high PR . though i dont know how exactly to do it , but i am sure it can be done .
You can 301 redirect your old domain name to your new domain name, you can also keep your backlinks, that is what 301 redirect there for. It will also pass the pagerank but when you check your pagerank, it will say your pagerank is fake.
Don't waste time on PR, its meaningless and should be last concnern. What you don't want to lose is any existent traffic and ranks. Using 301 always results in loss of partial rankings and traffic, so be careful while taking any drastic measure of changing domains
I advised my client against doing this, that branding and site name is less important than a PR (currently 4) and any existing traffic (granted not so much really). If we start from scratch now (PR0) can you jump to a PR4 in one update?