301 redirect

Hello, I wonder if anyone can help me.

I have 2 sites, one old with great ranking, the other brand new and only 3 weeks old. These are both for the same business, but the layout and content is different as well as the domain name.

I need to kill of Site A and redirect my customers to Site B, I have been told a 301 is the way to go.

Will this affect my ranking with google? I am not worried about page rank as I have only pr4 on my old one and already pr3 on my new one, but I rank top for my keyword which brings me a nice amount of business.

If I do a 301 will my ranking go and return?

Someone somewhere told me eventually google will replace old for new, but if I have changed my content will that then penalise me?

I am happy to use the same text if I must, but will google think it' a different site if I have different code / layout?

Any help is greatly appreciated, this is a scary proposition but one that if possible I need to do.

Nemo

If you do major changes it could be affected(keword density, meta, etc.). If you do minor changes it shouldn´t be affected

Thanks, I have also just moved servers which has gone live today. Should I wait or will that make no difference?

On another note this server is now based in th US whereas my old server was in the UK (which is where I am too), I have just read that I have just commited SEO suicide.

Changing countrie´s server from UK to USA can be a problem

If your target market is in the UK switch back to a UK based ISP ASAP!

A 301 redirect is the thing to do.