Opportunity for Redirect?

[Macinasac]

Hi there!

I've got a site selling outdoor jackets and remembered about a friend's old business website (that also sold outdoor jackets) which is now dormant.

He's kindly agreed to let me host a splash page on his old domain, or to use the domain to redirect.

I wasn't sure if Google looked negatively at redirects, so I suggested the page host option? What do you think?

I guess what it would mean is for us to supply our name server details to him, and then ask him to put these into his DNS settings.

If we were to host a page in this way, would we add a page of relevant content, a simple link? Would this pull the link juice through?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

[AdamThompson]

I think it would be better if it were hosted on a different server than your main site is.

[Macinasac]

Thanks Adam.

He currently doesn't have anything hosted other than the domain name unfortunately. If I was to get a splash page up there, I would have to host it.

I'll ask him about buying the domain, and if it went through, what's the most effective method of utilising this?

I was a little concerned that Google might look at the redirect unfavourably, especially if it was hosted by us, and using the same company that hosts our own site.

Maybe I'm making it more complicated than it is?

Appreciate your help

[Macinasac]

Thanks Rob!

It seems that buying the domain would give us lots more options... I really only spoke to the owner about the possibility for a splash page or 301 redirect

It's all a bit new to me really, the URL gives a 404 Error at the moment, so the content of his old site is gone.

If I was to buy the domain, how would I go about doing the page by page redirects?

I set up a crawl there, and did a little research on Open Site Explorer; found 50 Links from 34 Domains. So there's definitely juice there!

[AlanMosley]

If the old domain has incomming links, then you can 301 redirect it. That would be good value.

If it does not have any links, then it is of no value to redirect.

[AdamThompson]

"I guess what it would mean is for us to supply our name server details to him, and then ask him to put these into his DNS settings."

Don't do that. That would setup your site to be accessible via both urls.

Either put up a splash page on his domain linking to yours, or do a 301 redirect. I've had success with both tactics.

[RobMay]

Hi Matt,

This can be a great thing for you - if the old dormant domain is till being crawled, still indexed, and still has inbound links built to the site over time.

Adding a page to his site, and with unique relative content might pass back some value - but if the domain has been dormant for some time - the 'juice' value has probably fizzled a little (along with the site's rankings) for the market KW's he was targeting.

Is he planning to give you the domain? Perhaps sell it to you? If so, and he wanted out - I would do a domain and page by page level 301 redirect from his old dated site - to your domain. This would help pass through all the page link value as well as the domain - helping correct any 404's errorrs that might occur and help search index'es to map out the new 'address' of the pages on your site as the location - also pushing through those links and value to your domain.

Run a 'crawler' on his domain to map out the whole site - and then create an excel doc to map any relavant pages, info etc to pages on your domain and prep a 301 file to handle the redirects.

If that's a route he's willing to go, that's more or less what I would do to salvage any value from his domain/site and pass it along to yours.

If not - a page on his site, with a link back, will do just that  - provide a link back from an older/dated and not maintained site which won't do all that much for you in the grand scheme of things.

Hope that helps