Maintaining PR after a tear-down

[mauiman]

I'm looking at buying a site with strong PR, but it's what people in the housing industry would call a tear-down. The site was built on older technology and looks like ____.

If I replace the site with a new fresh look with many of the same features based on current technology will I maintain PR as long as I use redirects for any URLs that become obsolete with the changes?

[oseymour]

If you can keep the same page names......help.htm, fact.html....then you won't need to redirect...If you use a 301 redirect then the PR will eventually be passed....try and redirect to related pages so if the old one had any rankings, the new one will be ranked sooner

[alemcherry]

Yup, same URLS(with URL rewriting?) is best, and 301 is not bad either. But what looks like obselete to you need not be that bad for search engines. Your flashy design, cool ajax effects etc. could do worse in SERP.

I would reommend you to be careful while redesigning. Unless you believe that the new technology can bring in something better for the users, don't change.