Can my redirected URLS hurt my google pagerank?

Question

Hi! I have two sites with URLS which redirect to the real sites:

www.texifornia.com for texifornia.windhavenweb.com

www.galesgiggles.com for galesgifts.windhavenweb.com/giggles.html

I am not trying to mask the real site or trick google--I just wanted a shorter URL for some of my existing pages (without having to move the actual location of the pages). I try to link to the actual pages when I can, but in places like forums where the code automatically changes URLs to links, I usually use the shorter redirected URLS. Both of those URLS used to have a pagerank of 2 or 3 and now have PR 0, and I'm wondering if I am being penalized by google for redirecting, and if there is something I can do about it?

Answer 1

You should use 301 redirect  for keep your old page rank as it is.If you do 301 redirect it keep your page rank from old url to new url.

Answer 2

If you need to change the URL of a page as it is shown in search engine results, we recommended that you use a server-side 301 redirect. This is the best way to ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct page. The 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location.

301 redirects are particularly useful in the following circumstances:

-You've moved your site to a new domain, and you want to make the transition as seamless as possible.

-People access your site through several different URLs. If, for example, your home page can be reached in multiple ways - for instance, http://example.com/home, http://home.example.com, or http://www.example.com - it's a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL. You can also use Webmaster Tools to set your preferred domain.

-You're merging two websites and want to make sure that links to outdated URLs are redirected to the correct pages.

To implement a 301 redirect for websites that are hosted on servers running Apache, you'll need access to your server's .htaccess file. (If you're not sure about your access or your server software, check with your webhoster.) For more information, consult the Apache .htaccess Tutorial and the Apache URL Rewriting Guide. If your site is hosted on a server running other software, check with your hoster for more details.