Is using frameset to usurp PR from an old domain okay?
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I have a competitor who leapfrogged in Google SERPs after they purchased a domain that was let let go by a related authoritative organization and used it to redirect traffic from it to their website using frameset code. Is this a legit practice? Is this blackhat SEO? Here's the entirety of the code from the retired domain:
<html> <head> <title>www.competitors-website.com title> <META name="description" content="www.competitors-website.com"> <META name="keywords" content="www.competitors-website.com"> head> <frameset rows="100%,*" border="0"> <frame src="http://www.competitors-website.com" frameborder="0" /> <frame frameborder="0" noresize /> frameset>html>
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No its not.
the rank for the old domain is not transfered to the new domain using frames.
calling and old page may cause it to be loaded in a frame located on the new domain, but a 301 will do this and transfer the link juice also. So the 301 wins hands down every time.
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I'm convinced my competitor used this tactic for the sake of usurping PR and it worked. The domain they purchased was previously used for an "official / government" type of entity that had domains (.edu types) with PR ratings of 7 linking to it -- the result is the site that's being redirected to wound up with a PR6 and jumped up the SERPs.
I sent several spam reports to Google, and it seems to have resulted in the old domain name being demoted in the SERPs for the relative keywords, however the site that benefited stayed in its place on the SERPs (#2) for the primary keyword which was applicable to both. Interestingly enough, I just now looked and their PR dropped to 5 from 6.
Seems to me the site that was enjoying the boost should have been demoted as well.
Bottom line is I can't see me trying to do the same thing albeit I have a few other domains that I purchased that had relevant traffic coming to them and I did a legit 301 to my domain for the sake of the referrals and not for a bump in the SERPs or PR.
So now the question is: Is it considered good practice to buy an abandoned domain that has relevant / related traffic coming into it and redirect that traffic to my website using standard 301 redirect code?
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I cant see this working, better to point links to your site from the compeditors site.
You can 301 redirect, but i believe that it would not work well, as SE's can see that the sites are different. and why would they let you have the links of anouther site.
if you coped the content from the old site to the new then diod a 301, it would like you were swapping domains or merging sites and that would be ok, but simply trying to pass the credirt fromone web site to anouther web site i dont think they will like.
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