IIS 301 Redirect dilemna

I've been searching for an answer about this...but I seem to be only finding half the answer to my question.

It seems that a server-side redirect on IIS (301) is what everybody is saying is the best way to redirect to another domain without possible penalty from Google. However, if the optimization of the old domain is what I want to keep 'intact' with Google (still behind the scenes) for optimization purposes...is that okay? My old domain is a state directory that focuses on several categories of business, yet I want to redirect the page to a state-based affiliate website that focuses one of the categories (in other words...relevance...no cheap moves here). Yet, I want my page ranking to remain based on the old page that is still working behind the scenes. Is that possibe...and is it okay? I guess I'm not sure if the 301 redirect causes Google to lose site of the old page that I don't want it to lose site of...and sees the unoptimized affiliate page as it's indentity. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks, Ajordan

A 301 redirect just tells google that other page is moved to a new one. Google would carry the link popularity over to the new URL and be stable after a while.

However as far as relevance for that new pages' keywords compared to the density/content in the old page is another story, could get better in ranks or worse.

Thanks for you response. So you think Google will pass over the link popularity, but would re-equate the title, description and relevant body text...and re-rank that piece of it accordingly?

To sum it up short, yeah

You can't use a 301 to do what you want, it is better to just serve the old pages to Google and redirect human visitors to your new pages. Please not that Google dosn't like this, and a penalty might follow.