Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Buying an existing domain with higher ranks for redirecting

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Buying an existing domain with higher ranks for redirecting

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    6
    4735
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • upick-162391
      upick-162391 last edited by

      I've recently came across one of my competitors who's looking to sell their domain. Now they currently rank higher than my primary site for a few keywords we are targeting.

      Would it be wise to buy the domain and do a name server change over to my primary domain? Would it even help boost ranks for the keywords they rank higher for? Or will the link juice be minimal?

      Any thoughts would be great!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • mediabase
        mediabase last edited by

        Hi Upick,Fisrt of all I wan to tell you that It’s no secret that one of the tactics search engine optimization specialists use to increase search rankings is domain purchasing.  The idea is that you find a domain that currently ranks well within your niche, buy it and then redirect the site to your domain.  Alternatively you could purchase this domain and continue to build off of it and utilize its existing rankings and site traffic.

        Below are several do’s & don’ts to keep in consideration when purchasing a domain.

        DO:

        • Look for existing rankings
        • Research websites existing links.  Are they all pointing to the home page or do internal page links exist?
        • Examine the existing content on the site; can it be leveraged for more links?
        • Take into account the domain age/authority before purchasing
        • Take the time to determine if the price of the domain will outweigh natural content building and link building.
        • Check to see if any existing penalties or filters have been placed on the domain.
        • Map out domains internal pages to the pages of your current website.
        • Look for websites that are relevant to your niche.
        • Examine incoming links and see if they target your specific keywords.
        • Determine if the links from this domain will stay put even after a redirect placed.
        • Do look for yahoo, best of the web, DMOZ, business.com directory links.
        • Look to see if the backlinks come from other sites that the current site owner may own as well.  There is a good chance these links could disappear after the purchase.
        • Check out the websites existing traffic and verify it if possible.
        • Check the age of the domains existing links.
        • Look for authority news sites linking to the domain.

        DO NOT:

        • Purchase a domain based off its Google Page Rank.
        • Purchase a domain that only has low quality and spammy links.
        • Place too much value on a keyword matching domain.  (watch out for hyphenated URLS)
        • Redirect the entire website to your homepage.
        • Buy a site that’s not indexed in the search engines.
        • Purchase domains that are not in your niche.
        • Use any other redirect outside of a 301 redirect.  The value will not pass otherwise.
        • Substitute organic link building with multiple domain purchases.
        • Purchase a domain that has its entire link equity coming from a small quantity of domains.
        • 301 redirect several newly acquired domains at once; this could send a red flag to Google.

        These “Do’s & Don’ts” of domain purchasing hopefully will guide you in the right direction when it comes to you purchasing additional domains.  There are too many scammers with the intent of selling you a low value site at a high price.  This is why it’s crucial to do your homework before you purchase any domains.   Yes there are deals to be had out their but you have to be extra careful when you think your getting a steal.  If you follow the basics tips listed above you should be just fine!

        For more details please visit the Buying Expired Domains

        I hope that your query has been solved.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
        • MattJanaway
          MattJanaway @DougRoberts last edited by

          Great advice. If there are similar pages on both sites then why not redirect them to the similar page on your site. You can then add a link on the homepage of the new domain to pass through some juice 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • DougRoberts
            DougRoberts last edited by

            If you buy the domain and re-direct then remember to think of your competitors customers - not just the potential ranking boost!

            Ideally you want their customers to become your customers, so think about how you might redirect specific pages from their domain to landing pages designed to reassure people looking for you competitors products/services and position yourself as a viable alternative.

            The last thing you want if for them to think they're in the wrong place and bounce straight away, never to return!

            Before buying the domain, can you get any supporting stats / analytics? How many direct visitors, how many via search etc.You're likely to have a small window of opportunity, but it's definitely worth thinking about how you can get some of those customers that you might not be able to replace just from search.

            MattJanaway 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
            • Gustav-Northclick
              Gustav-Northclick last edited by

              A 301 should work fine.

              You should in theory gain some linkjuice and rankings from the domain.

              However the effects wont be as good as regular do follow links to your site.

              But as Marcin says it's still an efficient way... 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • marcinlejman
                marcinlejman last edited by

                Hi upick,

                you can buy the domain and do a 301 redirect to your site. I've done it many times, and it is still surprisingly powerful method to quickly get the desired rankings, obviously if the domain you're 301-ing was powerful enough.

                Hope it helps.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • anagentile

                  Redirection of 100 domain to Main domain affects SEO?

                  domain seo redirecting domain

                  Hi guys, An email software vendor managed by a different area of my company redirected 100 domains used for unsolicited email campaigns to my main domain. These domains are very likely to get blacklisted at some point. My SEO tool now is showing me all those domains as "linking" to my main site as do-follow links. The vendor states that this will not affect my main domain/website in any way. I'm highly concerned. I would appreciate your professional opinion about this. Thanks!!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anagentile
                  0
                • Bhisshaun

                  Redirect Issue - Drop in ranking after CMS change

                  Hi Website - https://www.aasprint.com.au/ After we moved the site from wordpress to codeIgniter + angular there has been a huge drop in traffic and ranking. One of the thing we recently realized is the redirection - COULD THAT BE THE ISSUE? On the browser and sitemap the URL doesn't have "/" at the end When checked on redirection tool the URL seems to be redirecting to one with "/" at the end Attached are the screenshots.  Also moz bar shows no redirection. However, the issue seems to be flagged by the site audit tool as 301 redirection. Not sure if it's  the cause for the drop. What action to take? Any advice would be much appreciated. V7CNtqt j3dJ4TW

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bhisshaun
                  0
                • missionunpossible

                  Does having multiple Domain aliases hurt SEO rank ?

                  Our company having multiple domain aliases (DIfferent TLD) like example.com, .net, .org, .club, .win to one site (Same Content). We do this because our country ISP is blocking a few of the domain aliases. Question: Does this hurt the SEO rank? What approach is the best for us to gain SEO Rank?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | missionunpossible
                  0
                • vtmoz

                  Linking from & to in domains and sub-domains

                  What's the best optimised linking between sub-domains and domains? And every time we'll give website link at top with logo...do we need to link sub-domain also with all it's pages? If example.com is domain and example.com/blog is sub-domain or sub-folder... Do we need to link to example.com from /blog? Do we need to give /blog link in all pages of /blog? Is there any difference in connecting domains with sub-domains and sub-folders?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                  0
                • RG_SEO

                  Will multiple domains from the same company rank for the same keyword search?

                  I'm trying to convince people that we need good marketing reasons for starting multiple domains, as it will be more difficult to rank multiple sites. Does anyone know if Google actively discourages multiple domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same keyword? We are creating a separate content website which is related to an existing company website. Would you agree that is best to have these sites on one domain with the content site on a sub-domain perhaps? I'm worried about duplication of effort and cross-keyword targeting in particular. These sites would not have duplicate content.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO
                  0
                • Avinashmb

                  Buying a domain banned by google

                  Hi , I came across a super domain for my business but found out that it was a great domain with 100s of link backs but is now banned by Google search engine meaning Google does not index content from that domain. Since the domains linkbacks are from my domin does it make sense to but that domain and redirect those link backs to another (301) and hope that the new domain gets some juice ... I know it is sounding crazy and may not be the best thing to do ethically but still wanted to check if its possible to get some juice.. Rgds Avinash

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Avinashmb
                  0
                • BrandLabs

                  Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain

                  I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past  years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs
                  0
                • AdeLewis

                  How long should a domain redirect take?

                  Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
                  Ade.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.