301 Redirects Pass Google PageRank & Signals in a "Couple Weeks"

SEOs and Webmasters always wondered how long it took for a typically site to pass along a PageRank value from one URL to another via a 301 redirect. Google's Adam Lasnik answered this question, saying only about a couple weeks.

In a Google Groups thread Adam says:

301s pass PR and related signals appropriately. Usually takes a couple of weeks for things to smooth out, though.

I was a bit shocked by the statement of just "a couple of weeks" for 301s to "pass PR and related signals appropriately." I always thought it was a couple months or more.

Well, maybe Google picks up the changes within a couple weeks. I.e. the time it takes to crawl the new information and URLs. But maybe by the time all this data is processed it takes longer?

But then why would Adam use the words, "for things to smooth out." Meaning, search results to smooth out.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

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posted rustybrick in Google Optimization at February 15, 2007 8:12 AM Comments (6)

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He probably means throughout all the data centers.

Posted by ogletree at February 15, 2007 08:31

In that group in particular Adam has to speak en masse from the casual blogger to the serious SEO so generalizations are the norm.

However, my experience has taught me that a cross-domain 301 will take months like you said, and within the domain it can take as little as a few days to a couple weeks for the less crawled pages.

Posted by JLH at February 15, 2007 10:14

If only Yahoo were so efficient. It still takes over a year for any major site to switch domains.

Posted by Andrew at February 15, 2007 10:36

If you got a 301 on a supplemental page, I don't think the transfer is that quick, because according to Matt Cutts, supplemental pages don't get crawled by Googlebot as often.

Posted by Halfdeck at February 15, 2007 11:25

I switched my site to another host and was pretty proficient in my 301's and even now, a year later...I am still waiting for my pr3's and 4's to transfer over...still nothing yet.

Posted by Turbo at February 16, 2007 12:34

I had just completed a series of 301 redirects for a client across 20 domains. It appeared that the PR transfer was instant for one of the target domains.. a couple notes:

- all of the other domains where forwarded with a consistent url previously.
- even though the other domains where mirrors of the primary site they still held [1-2] PR
- the other domains passed an increase of PR1 to the primary domain, moving it from 2 to 3.

I realize these instant results are not typical as I tried it on another domain that was not mirrored and it did not happen instantly.. My 2 cents!
Cheers,

Justin Frost
Realstock Internet Marketing SEO and Ad Syndication
http://www.realstock.ca

Posted by Justin Frost at April 20, 2007 15:05

301 Redirects Pass Google PageRank & Signals in a "Couple Weeks"

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