Got better domain for existing site. What now?

[cmartinez]

Ok so here is the question, I have a site up and it's been up for less than a year. I am not sure if this is good or not but currently it holds a PR 2, I am guessing this isn't good or bad, but it seems to be average per many sites i've compared to.

I have been looking into SEO and Domain Names and have found many articles that describe how keywords in your domain name help. So recently I got 2 new domain names that contain my keywords and I want to use them. But how?

Can I use, what I believe to be the better domain name (the new one) as the primary, and do a 301 redirect from my original domain to the new domain. Also, if this is done, I would "obviously" have to move all of my content, would this mean that I would loose my current PR 2?

Any help would be seriously appreciated. Thanks all!

[leftybogs]

if you redirect your site to new domain... you have to wait to transfer all the backlinks and PR.. .usually it takes time..

[cmartinez]

So I am left with just using the original domain for now?
Ok so here's another question...

If I add this new domain to my google domain list in the google control panel, and do the redirect for the new domain, will google relate the information it crawls to the new domain? Will it completely forget about having gone through the new domain after it redirects?

in other words, will the new domain be of any benefit at all since google only crawls my site after it has passed through my original domain?

[leftybogs]

if you do the permanent redirection... yes...