Preserve Google +1, Facebook Like, and Twitter Tweet This button counts after URI change

Question

My question is very simple: is there any way to (programmatically, technically, or manually) make a Google +1, Facebook Like, or Twitter Tweet This button preserve its count after a change of URI?

Programmatically: Doing something with the javascript to make it show the combined counts of two URIs while posting the new action to only the latter.

Technically: Do they detect and follow a 301 redirect from the original resource? Is there any special text I can include in the HTTP header to tell them that they should move all "points" from the old URI to the new one?

Manually: Some form somewhere on their site that I can submit or someone I can email that will be able to copy our points over to the new URI?

(note that I use URI and not URL in this question on purpose. The canonical resource link is changing from something.php?id=idnumber to /mycoolproduct/)

EDIT

Bounty started, but don't answer with "it can't be done"

Answer 1

I believe there is only one solution that fits your request above universally. That solution would be to 301/302 the old URIs to the new URIs and then keep using the old URIs with your social buttons. All the major social buttons allow you to specify the URL for which to like/g+/tweet/etc. This would preserve your existing social share counts and all shared posts would still direct to the same page. The choice now becomes whether to 301 or 302 redirect. A 302 may help preserve current search placement and avoid loosing your ranking if its pretty good. A 301 redirect (moved permanently) will cause search engines to start indexing your new URLs and dropping the old ones. This might cause a loss in current search rankings. It appears that as of this post, nobody is honoring redirects for social votes of any kind.

So I think the the safest route is to 302 redirect and continue to use the old URIs for social votes. You will keep your equity this way, but must maintain your redirects and become even more invested in the old URI template. How are your redirects implemented? .htaccess? or in page? You will need to weigh the cost-benefits for your case.

Otherwise you should probably 301 and start using the new URIs for your social buttons. In this case you might loose your social equity, but are free to build new without fear of messing up anything. If the social equity you are replacing can be recouped in say 6 months or less I wouldn't bother with it and start fresh.

However, this brings up an interesting point. You mentioned programatically adding two counts. Well yes, you could put together some JavaScript to add a couple counts together, but I gotta ask why? Adding them together for visual display purposes will not actually help increase referral traffic or search ranking. So its just a facade that I don't think helps you. If you're just looking to fool your visitors into thinking you're popular, why not just generate an image server side that keeps counting up. (bad joke, don't do it!) Bottom line you can't actually redirect your social equity, you may be able to pretend to have moved it, but you can't actually.

Considering your original question asks about several social buttons, its important to note that even if one or two of these services started honoring redirects when applying social votes, it wouldn't relieve you from making the decisions above. You'll still need the redirects for existing backlinks, and if you are supporting multiple social buttons on your page the choice of redirect type will need to be made with all of the social buttons in mind.