Changing Name of Webpage - How long to Get PR Up

[bethabernathy]

Hi There - I renamed 1 of my webpages to contain the search term I am going for in the title. I left the original page on the web as it is doing pretty well i.e. #6 for the search phrase I am going for on Google. Google has picked up the new page, and it has a PR of 0/10, how long does it take for the PR to catch up with the rest of my pages (which are only 5/10)? Also, I am wondering, should I remove the old page as it is duplicate? I don't want to get a penalty for have two identical pages up on the web, but I also don't want to lose the referrals from the original page that isn't doing too badly. Thanks for any information you may have. :)

[qwerty]

I'm going to assume that when you say "title" you mean the file name, since you could have just changed the title tag of the original page if that's what you wanted. If that's the case, I should tell you that the ranking benefit of getting keywords into a file name is pretty small. It's probably worth doing for new pages, but I wouldn't do it for a page that's already indexed.

If you still want to do it though, you should get rid of the original page and put a 301 redirect on its URL to point user-agents to the new one. Otherwise, the search engines will continue to index the content at the old URL and will just ignore the new one. It's not exactly a penalty; they just aren't interested in something that's a copy of a page they already know about.

[bethabernathy]

Would the redirect cause any issues? Also, how long does it take for the PR of the new page to catch up with the rest of the site? Thanks, Beth

[AussieWebmaster]

Would the redirect cause any issues? Also, how long does it take for the PR of the new page to catch up with the rest of the site? Thanks, Beth
By doing the 301 redirect you are transferring the PR of the page to the new page as well the inbound links that were going to that old page. If you have a solid number of anchor links and good content on the new page for the term you should hold your spot and even improve!!!

[bethabernathy]

Unfortunately I am on a windows server, so I am pretty sure that won't work. But I will try to find an alternative. Thanks for info. -Beth :)

[AussieWebmaster]

htaccess files don't exist for windows... I found this on WMW

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://www.example.com/yournewpage.asp"
%>

The page this code runs on must be an .asp page.

[bethabernathy]

So if my old page wasn't an .asp page it won't work, is this right? :o

[bethabernathy]

Add that great code from above into your page. Then in IIS right click on the website you want to edit and click properties.
Then click on the home tab and click the Configuration button on the bottom.
This allows the .html files to be processed by the asp.dll file. See screen shot below that does the configuration in IIS:

http://www.integratedresourcemgmt.com/images/application_config.gif

Does anyone see this to be a problem with the Search Engines? I don't see any problem. -Beth :D

[AussieWebmaster]

Nice visually explained answer

[bethabernathy]

That was quick. The 301 Redirect worked beautifully. Google has picked up my newly named page that contains the search terms in the title and that page is now ranking 1 point above the old page on Google. Thanks for the Tips!! :D :D