Changing domain names and structure?

[heavyharmonies]

We are currently indexed by Google under www.domainname.com/sitename . We are highly ranked for several search terms that we are happy with.

For logisitical and organizational reasons, we are changing our site to www.sitename.com

Are there any good resources on how best to make this transition without negatively affecting Google rankings?

Once the site is set up on the new server is it advisable to set up individual page redirects on the old server to the corresponding pages under the new domain name? Do I submit a new google sitemap from the new domain? I want to avoid being penalized by Google, but I'm not sure where to start.

Thanks in advance.

[bobsmo]

You have to use redirect. Hopefully google will catch your new page soon. But the new page's pr might be low unless you get a lot of links.

[SuperZu]

is it advisable to set up individual page redirects on the old server to the corresponding pages under the new domain name?
Yes, make sure you 301 redirect all pages on the old domain to corresponding same topic pages on the new domain. Allow up to a month for popularity and rank to be passed to the new location.
Make sure you update your sitemap for Google and other search engines and you should be fine.

[beu]

You might also use a robots.txt to disallow the old URLs.

[SuperZu]

You might also use a robots.txt to disallow the old URLs.

I don't recommend doing this. If robots can't go and fetch the èage they can't see the redirect towards the new location of this content. This way, you loose all the popularity and ranking the old pages had.