Pointing Other URL to My Site? Good or bad for ranking.

[caisson]

A few years ago I purchased a few keyword rich domain names and set up some satellite sites. Spammy I now know.

What should I do now?  I own the domain names for at least another 3 years.  Should I point them to my main site or would that hurt my main site ranking?

[Digital-Diameter]

I would not do too many of these, but I agree with Gary. As long as there are no penalties associated with the domains, owning them and 301-ing them to your website should be fine and may get some domain traffic when someone types theexactproductyousell.com

Having said that, I don't think this will do what you want. If these domains don't have links pointing to them or any authority, so It's not likely to do much for positive rankings.

[PinpointDesigns]

I think that sounds absolutely fine on the basis the backlinks pointing to the URLs are ok and like Gary said, check you haven't received any penalties on the URLs. If you've done any blackhat link building on the URLs and you're planning on 301 redirecting them, you're potentially opening yourself up for trouble.

That being said, why do you want to 301 redirect them? Do the sites have regular traffic coming to them? Or have you done some particularly good form of link building on them?

If there's no real value in redirecting them, you may as well just leave them and cut your loses early...

[gazzerman1]

That sounds good to me

[caisson]

I don't think the sites are associated with any bad mojo.  I was thinking I would just change the DNS on the domains to send the traffic to my main site and then us redirect to resolve the URL into my main page URL.  At lease until they expire.  After that I'll let them go.  In the mean time I've decided to invest all time & resources into creating value on my main site.

Anyone see any problem with that strategy?

[caisson]

the sites where originally meant for value and original content.  However lack to time & resources made them just a waste of time.

[gazzerman1]

If you 301 the domains to your current site, that is fine provided non of them have any nasty stuff like penalties associated with them.

It can actually boost business sometimes if they are good domains that people go to directly, does not happen often but it can do.

Many websites have multiple domains 301'd to their main site for brand name protection such as spelling mistakes. So its a very common practice.

If on the other hand you refer to linking I would definitely not do that!

Or you could build up the other domains with relevant content and save them for a rainy day if your main site ever got hit in the future by a penalty. Seems to be a backup plan many have right now as Google is in crazy mode right now.

[TakeshiYoung]

Microsites can be done in a spammy way or a white hat way. If you have the time & resources, you could consider posting unique content on each of the mircosites and build them up as legitimate sites. They could even draw in search traffic. Then link them to your main site in a non-spammy way (i.e. no exact match anchor text).

[SErOb]

What do you mean by pointing them to your main site (linking or redirecting)?

And if your concern is just because you have the inventory of domain names, shut 'em down if the sites are of no value.