Multiple domains expiring that have 301 redirects to my primary domain. Am I in trouble?
-
I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc. ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website.
The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com. I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure.
Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic.
My question:
All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com). I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?
-
I'd say check each site for incoming links, you may find some do not have any in which case it can't hurt to lose them and others have accumulated several. In that case keep those 301's or try and change the incoming links to point directly to your new domain "example.com" than you could drop the domain.
-
Yes it can. Whether or not this will in fact hurt your SEO position depends on the backlinks these websites are receiving.
All the links that point to your domains pass linkjuice. This linkjuice is sent to you primary domain because of the redirects. This means that you will lose all backlinks currently pointing at these domains. My advice is to try and figure out how many links we are talking about, and how much link juice they pass to your current site. You could use opensiteexplorer.org or your webmaster tools for that.
However, If you really don´t mind the cost of keeping the domains at all, i´d say just keep it like it is.
Good luck!
Sven Witteveen
Expand Online
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Handling Multiple Domain 301 Redirects on Single htaccess file
Hello, I have a client that currently that has 9 different markets with different sub-domains on one server (aka one htaccess file.). All the sites have very similar Navigation and some of them contain the same products aka same URLs. The site is using Magento CMS and I'm trying to figure out how to redirect some products that have been removed from one of the stores. The problem I'm running into is when I try to redirect one store url, it redirects all the site's URLs. Example http://store.domain1.com/ http://store.domain2.com/ I'd like to redirect http://store.domain1.com/old-url.html to http://store.domain1.com/new-url.html without making http://store.domain2.com/old-url.html redirect. I've literally been pulling out my hair trying to figure this one out but have had no luck. Does anybody have any ideas on how I could do this without having the sites redirect or create any loops? Any wisdom from you apache experts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Erik
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Erik-M0 -
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
Multiple 301 redirects and old site content appearing in Google results
I have found that for some Google searches the old version of the site on a completely different domain is appearing on page one of the results, while the newer site is only on page 3. The old site is redirecting to the new site with a 301 redirect, however there is also an additional redirect on the new site to force SSL. Despite this when you view the Google cache of the result that appears in Google the content of the page is still the old site. Is this normal or is Google not following the chain of 301 redirects? Edit: I just found out that downloading the page by right clicking a link and clicking download rather than viewing it in a browser leads to the old site appearing and the 301 redirect not being followed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | freshleafmedia0 -
Is there any ranking benefit to buying and redirecting high PageRank domains?
Hello, I'm interested in learning how to assume ownership of a site without Google resetting the PageRank and the links back to zero. I've read that buying sites is one of the most powerful SEO "shortcuts" you can employ, but can be tricky. I've heard that, unfortunately, buying an existing domain and 301 redirecting for SEO credit is not that simple. When the WHOIS registration information on the newly purchased domain is updated to reflect its transfer to you, the new owner, that domain will almost immediately be reset by Google to a PageRank=0. That's the standard practice when a domain changes hands. Since Google is a domain registrar, obviously, change of ownership information is readily available for their use in factoring it into their algorithms. If you decide to 301 redirect the new domain to another domain you already own, you will get credit for the site's current incoming link profile, at least in the short-term. However, this purchased domain will eventually reset to PR=0 (usually during the next PageRank update) AND you will then get no credit for all of those links post-transfer. What is your experience with buying and redirecting domains?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice0 -
How to decide on which site to 301 redirect
Hi there I'd like your opinions please! My client currently has their website at not-very-good-url.it which has a really good link profile they also have duplicate sites at: much-better-brand-name-url.it and much-better-brand-name-url.com but both these other sites have only a handful of links in. How important do you think a better brand url is? And therefore do you think it would be better to 301 to a better brand URL and take the risk that the link profile will get hit? Or leave the main site where it is and 301 the other two to it? Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
One Website, Multiple Top-level Domains
I have two clients, both of which have a single website, with multiple top-level domains, many of which represent "subpages". For example, when you navigate to the home page, the URL is "[CompanyName].com". However, when you navigate to a subpage, the browser appears to remain at the same website, but in actuality (as you can tell from the URL bar) you've navigated to "SubPage.com". Client A is an insurance company that has multiple branded insurance products. Each product is independent of the other (it's unlikely that a single client would purchase multiple insurance products from different brands) and have their own brand. Thusly, each section of the site that represents a different brand has its own top-level domain. The website design/structure remains the same, with some light color changes and image swaps. Client B is a consultant and offers various services. None of these services are "branded" (a single client would hire the consultant for a wide range of available services). Each subpage on the site represents a different service and has its own top-level domain. Here are my questions: Are either Client A or B breaking guidelines set forth by major search engines? Are either Client A or B hurting their optimization with this trickery? My inclination is that Client A is doing it right, but Client B is not. Your insights would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PinckneyHugoGroup0 -
Quoestion about 301 redirect
Hey, I have interesting questions regardin 301 redirect (At least I think it's Interesting:) ) So i have this websites that compares different lenders, url below 🙂 If you go to the homepage then the first thing you see is different loan amounts in 50-99 euro range. Also you can check out different loan amounts like 100-149€, 150-199€, 200-249€ and so on. For now i have used 301 redirect and Noindex and Nofollow for all the different "loan amounts" urls. Examples below etc Is it a good idea to use 301 on all such pages to point to the homepage?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TauriU0 -
What is the best practice when a client is setting up multiple sites/domains
I have a client that is creating separate websites to be used for different purposes. What is the best practice here with regards to not looking spammy. i.e. do the domains need to registered with different companies? hosted on different servers, etc? Thanks in advance for your response.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan-1718030