Retain/transfer old website's page rank?

[Uber]

Hi,

I am working on this non-profit org website. Their current domain name is registered in the name of the guy who is no longer associated with the organization. The domain name is going to expire in couple of months. We have registered for a new domain name. It will be up in couple of weeks as soon as I am done working on the website.

My question is, the current website is #1 on google for a couple of search terms. What can I do to retain the high page rank after we switch over to the new domain name/new server?

Thanks.
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Car Sound Subscriber management

[harrysmith]

Switching to new server won't affect your ranking but changing your domain name will surely affect, you will have to re-optimize your site from the scratch.
So don't change your domain name.

[siteadmin]

301 redirect your existing domain name to the new domain. It takes time to gain the backlink effect and pagerank. Once the backlink effect passes you are all set for ranking. But it takes a lot of time. Best suggestion is to keep the old domain if possible.

changing server wont have any effect unless you are shifting to a really crappy server