How to move a Tumblr blog without hurting PageRank?

Question

I have a Tumblr blog which I want to move to somewhere else. I don't want my Google visibility resetted after moving. I am thinking to do it this way;

1) I believe Tumblr allows custom domain names. I will point it to my new domain, and wait for some time for Google to see the changes.

2) I will copy all my posts to new host, but they will use different URL pattern like category-name/post-title

3) In my new host, I will set 301 redirects for every page that existed on old blog to correct place for them on my new blog. For example, links like post/61879534273/title-of-the-page will be redirected to category-name/title-of-the-page on new host.

4) In my domain name settings, I will point my domain name to my new host.

Would this setup work as I intended? If not, is there another way to do it?

Answer 1

Yes, this will work.

When you use a custom domain with tumblr, tumblr issues a 301 redirect¹ (moved permanently) for all pages and subpages to redirect your tumblr subdomain at example.tumblr.com/path/ to your registered domain at example.com/path/.

When Google has re-indexed the site to display URLs with your registered domain instead of the original tumblr domain, it's safe to migrate your site to your own server by repointing the A record in your domain records, provided that you set up redirect rules on your server first, as you describe.

¹ – I confirmed that tumblr issues 301 redirects by sending a GET request for a post on my tumblr subdomain, which redirects to the custom domain with a 301 status: