'Stealing' link juice from 404's

[RBenedict]

As you all know, it's valuable but hard to get competitors to link to your website. I'm wondering if the following could work:

Sometimes I spot that a competitor is linking to a certain external page, but he made a typo in the URL (e.g. the competitor meant to link to awesomeglobes.com/info-page/ but the link says aewsomeglobes.com/info-page/).

Could I then register the typo domain and 301 it to my own domain (i.e. aewsomeglobes.com/info-page/ to mydomain.com/info-page/) and collect the link juice? Does it also work if the link is a root domain?

[RBenedict]

Thank you guys for your answers!

I realize that other strategies are more effective and less 'gray', but I was just wondering if it could work in theory. I'm not planning on buying hunderds of broken typo domains, but I figured that a link from a direct competitor could be pretty valuable. But if 301's lose juice like Gareth said, one link might not be even worth it.

@Takeshi; Thanks for suggesting Xenu, I'll check it out!

[TakeshiYoung]

Broken link building is a GREAT strategy for building links.  I've used the tactic on a number of my own sites and seen great results.  It's a quick, easy, and cheap way of getting links from relevant sites, even your competitors!

Another way to do it is to go into archive.org and re-create the content that was originally on the 404'd page.  This is if the page has a lot of other links going to it, and you want to build out a secondary site instead 301ing to your main.  Then you can link the secondary site to your main, or use it however you want.

You can also do traditional white hat broken link building and use the broken link as a way to start a conversation with a webmaster, and get them to link to you.

You can find tons of broken links by looking for links pages on your niche, or running Xenu link sleuth and similar tools on pretty much any large site that's been around for a few years.

Bottom line:

Domain name registration = $10/year

A link from the homepage of a direct competitor = PRICELESS!

[Adam.Whittles]

Hi Roel,

Personally, I wouldn't bother with this kind of strategy. First you have to purchase the domain, then pay for hosting the domain and all for what? Some extra link juice?

People get too obsessed with gaining link juice to increase their own PR and they forget the main purpose to creating links. Not only will the links (if they are good quality) help you in the SERPs, they can also direct valuable traffic to your site that could potentially create sales or conversions. How valuable is a link from an unrelated typo to your business really worth?

There is also the possibility that the typo link won't last long. Either the webmaster realises the error and fixes or removes the link, or the webmaster of the non-typo site notices the typo and asks for it to be changed. You are then left with a useless domain.

My advice, just focus on building good quality links.

Adam.

[SEO-Doctor]

Definitely NOT worth the effort!!  301 redirects have lost a lot of power over the years.  I've had clients in the past buy hundreds of sites with PR and redirect them all (not from my advice), and it still did not get them to where they wanted to be.