So I've read the debate about 301 re directs and whether or not they will pass on the authority of the old sate. What do you SEO experts think? I have a site that is 13 years old with pr5 and 8,000 back links that I have to move to a new domain. Will all the trust be lost with Google?
I would keep the old domain name, but if you 301 redirect properly it should pass over all the value in time. How long that process might take is unknown, and it's unknown if all value will be transfered over. In my opinion I'd stick with the original domain.
If you 301 redirect, everything will be as it always was! That was the first task I had at my current job - 301 redirect from a URL that's been around since 1995, to a newly registered URL. It took almost exactly a month for the PR to move over, but the 301 kicked in immediately, and a month later, inherited the PR7. SERPs never changed during the process. I just happen to have a tutorial if interested: 301 redirect