Hi,
I Need some help on this one:
A site I'm making SEO for is being redesigned now and the homepage URL: www.domain.com is about to be located at the root with a 301 redirect to the new homepage URL: www.domain.com/en/index.aspx which is placed in a folder (since there will be additional languages in the site, all in seperate folders).
The site will be moved to a new server as well.
I wonder whether the old homepage PR5 will be transferred to the new URL via the permanent redirect and if so, how long should this take?
Can you recommend of another plan of action to ensure that the current PR won't get damaged?

Thanks!

Anyone?? Any suggestions??
Thank you

Is it really necessary to create this redirection? Why you need to have under EN folder?

Well, that's the current navigation structure as designed for the new site. If the only way to get things to work (i.e. not lose PR) is to design the navigation differentely - I'll do that.
However, I'm trying to find ways to make this situation work at my favor.

I'd say that, if it's at all possible, you should leave the English site where it is, and install the new languages in their respective folders.

If you must stick to the /language structure across the board, using a 301 for *all* English pages (not just home) will probably work.

Caveat: there have been some reports that Google handles 301's inconsistently. Sometimes a site's URLs will not change even after it gets respidered and reindexed, resulting in a link scoring disconnect that hurts rankings pretty badly.

This hasn't happened to me personally, but reports on the forums suggest that this behavior can take months to resolve itself (and it's just waiting - not much you can do to nudge things.)

Hence, most people would rather not disturb URL structures - moving them is like trying to move a piece of land with the house still on it.

(As far as the other languages are concerned, you might also want to reconsider the languages-in-folders idea. In-country search engines often give preference to in-country domains (dot-uk, etc) in rankings.)

Thanks alot for your comments, they're realy helpful!
I've noticed myself the inconsistency regarding the ability of a 301 redirect to pass on the former page's PR to new URL.
About your suggestion to redirect all pages via 301 to new URLs, I would like to comment that all of the incoming links to the site are pointing to the homepage, so I guess that's the only redirection I need, isn't it?

Thanks.

As far as those links are concerned, yes. But you also undoubtedly have rankings for other internal pages. If you don't 301 those, then you'll lose those rankings instantly in the change over.

Yes, eventually that home page PR will cascade down into lower levels... if you're patient ;)

Sherwood, thank you again!