Will a timed 301 redirect work for Googlebot?

[GOODSIR]

Our client is changing brand names and domain names. We know we need to 301 redirect the old domain, but for marketing reasons we want people to see a short message saying that the brand has changed and that they will be redirected.

Example:

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Our concern is how, or if, Googlebot will intepret the redirect. Will this accomplish our SEO objective of moving the value of the page to the new domain, or do we need to do just a plain old fashioned 301 redirect and not even let the page load?

Thanks for your help.

[GOODSIR]

Thank you Kane.

I know the message isn't going to be permanent, but I imagine that the client would want it on there for perhaps several weeks.

[KaneJamison]

Option 1:

One option would be to set up a normal 301 redirect and have a pop-up message on the new site that explains the branding change to all new visitors.

Option 2:

Another solution would be to set up all 301 redirects to forward to the new URL + a tracking parameter, such as http://www.newdomain.com?redirected=true.

You could then instruct Google to ignore the tracking tag by (A) not displaying the parameter in the canonical tag, and (B) telling Google to ignore the parameter via Google Webmaster Tools.

You should be able to display a message when that parameter is present, and when they click through to another page on the new site, it can go away.

A variation on this would be to do the same thing and use normal Google Analytics UTM tracking parameters. Google will definitely know to ignore those and you should be able to display a popup based upon those as well

Theoretically option 2 shouldn't cause any problems. In an ideal world, you would test this first.

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There are probably other options that would work - but those two come to mind first.

Does this message need to be permanent or is the client ok with leaving it up temporarily?

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In case you haven't already, take a look over the rest of Google's suggestions on migrating the domain: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105