Just need confirmation on how 301 redirects work

[Open Net]

About 18 months ago I created a blog, not to make money, but because I was passionate about the subject matter. Over a year and 100,000 pageviews later, I have an established authority site in a sports niche with #1 rankings for dozens of searched keyword phrases.

My most-visited page is an event listing that does not exist anywhere else on the internet. It's a wordpress page, and it ranks highly for dozens of the event names, as well as more generic terms related to the niche.

My problem is that I used the year "2011" in the page title, and thus, in the URL.

I'm beginning to plan for 2012, and want to create a new page, then remove the year from the title and just have the title say "xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx Tournament Listing" without the year.

Am I correct when I say that all I need to do is add a 301 redirect in the root folder of that domain, forwarding the old page to the new page, and that I'll keep my SEO rankings (allowing some time for google to catch up)?

[Seekness]

In theory, yes. There's no guarantee that it will go exactly as hoped for, but the idea is that the 301 prevents you from losing all accumulated authority/link juice.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by Open Net

Am I correct when I say that all I need to do is add a 301 redirect in the root folder of that domain, forwarding the old page to the new page, and that I'll keep my SEO rankings (allowing some time for google to catch up)?

That is the correct method, but you will see some rankings loss. It is not a true 1:1 transfer of authority. The amount of loss is debatable. Some people say about a 30% hit. Others say less. And still others will argue up to 50%.

[Open Net]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

That is the correct method, but you will see some rankings loss. It is not a true 1:1 transfer of authority. The amount of loss is debatable. Some people say about a 30% hit. Others say less. And still others will argue up to 50%.

Thanks to both of you.

My hope is that because the new page will have very similar data, and that this data does not exist entirely anywhere else online, that I'd even be able to rank with the new page by the time the season begins this fall. With the 301, hopefully that occurs even sooner.

Also, the 301 works by redirecting anyone from the old page to the new page...so my hundreds of real, natural backlinks from "friendly" sites in my same niche will eventually land on my new page. Right?

Note that I haven't done a stitch of "on-purpose" SEO on this. Just built something that didn't exist and got a lot of natural love from real sites. So hopefully they'll still find me after the 301.

[Seekness]

Originally Posted by Open Net

Thanks to both of you.

Also, the 301 works by redirecting anyone from the old page to the new page...so my hundreds of real, natural backlinks from "friendly" sites in my same niche will eventually land on my new page. Right?

Yes, exactly. And if the page is offering something unique that isn't offered elsewhere, I'd say it boosts your chances that it'll remain up near the top. At worst, it should continue to get those natural links over time because of its utility, and you'll end up back where you were.