Buying existing domain: 301 or keep site?
-
I have the opportunity to buy a domain in the same vertical as my own (real estate) which has a decent link profile and good SERPs.
What are the pros and cons of keeping the existing domain and tweaking the content versus 301ing the domain to my existing domain or a page on my domain?
-
interlinking different domains targeting the same keyword universe can get you penalized, so if you're going to play the "more than one horse in the race" game keep them as independent as possible and know what you're doing and understand the risks.
-
Thanks for your thoughts Adam.
1. This other site doesn't have great content. It has a lot of links from pages with decent authority, but it didn't earn these links because of great content.
We are a small shop and creating content is a challenge just for one site. 301ing would certainly be easier.
2. This other domain has a focus on a nearby town that really isn't our area of focus. I think we could get lots of leads by getting this site up and running, but we really don't have the staff to handle this new geographic area.
From a keyword perspective, there is an interesting overlap. The subject domain focuses on Wenatchee Washington. Our site is about Leavenworth Washington, which includes Lake Wenatchee (which is an hour from Wenatchee, but shares the Wenatchee keyword.)
Geordie
-
Keep in mind however that links and rankings can degrade over time. If you aren't building new content on the new domain then the advantage may begin to fade after a while. It can be difficult to develop unique, fresh content for both domains.
It depends on how close your branding of each will be and if it's meant to drive sales leads then you also have to make sure to focus on the user experience for both.
-Jason
-
I'm massively in favour of keeping these domains rather than using a 301 redirect. Although you can gain some short term benefits from the link juice passed on with a 301 redirect, you are much better off in the long term by keeping the domain and creating links to your site from the domain. Here's why:
-
If you 301 redirect the domain, no new content will be created on that domain and in all likelihood, no new links will be created for that domain and you may even lose links. Whereas if you keep the domain, you can continue to build new content that attract more links.
-
If the domain is in the same industry and has good rankings in search engines then why not capitalise on that opportunity? Now you can have two sites that rank well generating more sales/conversions for your single business.
That's my thoughts,
Adam.
-
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
-
Site Title When Your Domain name is the keyword
Hello, I've been struggling with an issue for years. I own UsedCubicles.com. I'm ranked very well, the site generates leads and income on a regular basis. However, I never know what to name the site on the home page. The main keyword I go after is obviously "Used Cubicles". I also have product category named "Used Cubicles". I know google doesn't recognize my Used Cubicles product category as conical and reverts to the home page. I would rather Google use my categories more effectively to rank content or pages. My current site title on the home page is NOT GOOD. Used Cubicles | Usedcubicles.com. Im nervous to change it, however because Im not sure if its helping me rank for the keyword, which I do. For years I was #1 across the country but lately its been dropping. Any advice is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grant06970 -
Redirecting an Entire Site to a Page on Another Site?
So I have a site that I want to shut down http://vowrenewalsmaui.com and redirect to a dedicated Vow Renewals page I am making on this site here: https://simplemauiwedding.net. My main question is: I don't want to lose all the authority of the pages and if I just redirect the site using my domain registrar's 301 redirect it will only redirect the main URL not all of the supporting pages, to my knowledge. How do I not lose all the authority of the supporting pages and still shut down the site and close down my site builder? I know if I leave the site up I can redirect all of the individual pages to corresponding pages on the other site, but I want to be done with it. Just trying to figure out if there is a better way than I know of. The domain is hosted through GoDaddy.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | photoseo10 -
301 Redirects - 4 sites into 1
Hey all, I have an SEO conundrum that seems to have no right or wrong answer. If you have 2 minutes I’d love to hear your opinion. The Situation
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PamelaH88
Our client has 4 ecommerce sites (Sites A, B, C & D) all selling the same products.
He wishes to to merge all 4 sites into a single site (Site A) Options
In order to maintain maximum SEO authority do we: A - Choose a single site (B, C, or D) with the most SEO authority/juice/power and 301 re-direct it into Site A
Or
B – 301 re-direct all 3 sites (B, C & D) into Site A Our experience says that 301’ing from a single site works well, but from multiple sites feels spammy and risky. Really keen too hear your thoughts.1 -
How much SEO damage would it do having a subdomain site rather directory site?
Hi all! With a coleague we were arguing about what is better: Having a subdomain or a directory.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Let me explain some more, this is about the cases: Having a multi-language site: Where en.domain.com or es.domain.com rather than domain.com/en/ or domain.com/es/ Having a Mobile and desktop version: m.domain.com or domain.com rather than domain.com/m or just domain.com. Having multiple location websites, you might figure. The dicussion started with me saying: Its better to have a directory site.
And my coleague said: Its better to have a subdomain site. Some of the reasons that he said is that big companies (such as wordpress) are doing that. And that's better for the business.
My reasons are fully based on this post from Rand Fishkin: Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday So, what does the community have to say about this?
Who should win this argue? GR.0 -
Large Site - Complete Site URL Change and How to Preserver Organic Rankings/Traffic
Hello Community, What is your experience with site redesign when it comes to preserving the traffic? If a large enterprise website has to go through a site-wide enhancement (resulting in change of all URLs and partial content), what do you expect from Organic rankings and traffic? I assume we will experience a period that Google needs to "re-orientate" itself with the new site, if so, do you have similar experience and tips on how to minimize the traffic loss? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | b.digi0 -
On-Site Directory - Delete or Keep?
We have 2 ecommerce sites. Both have been hit by Penguin (no warnings in WMT) and we're in the process of cleaning up backlinks. We have link directories on both sites. They've got links that are relevant to the sites but also links that aren't relevant. And they're big directories - we're talking thousands of links to other sites. What's the best approach here? Do we leave it alone, delete the whole thing, or manually review and keep highly relevant links but get rid of the rest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingof50 -
301 many smaller domains to a new, large domain
Hi all, I have a question regarding permanently redirecting many small websites into one, large new one. During the past 9 years I have created many small websites, all focusing on hotel reservations in one specific city. This has served me beautifully in the past, but I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer a sustainable model and therefore I am in the process of creating one large, worldwide hotel reservations website. To not loose any benefit of my hard work the past 9 years, I want to permanently redirect the smaller websites to the correct section of my new website. I know that if it is only a few websites, that this strategy is perfectly acceptable, but since I am talking about 50 to 100 websites, I am not so sure and would like to have your input. Here is what I would like to do: (the domain names are not mine, just an example) Old website: londonhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/london/ Old website: berlinhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/berlin/ Old website: amsterdamhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/amsterdam/ Etc., etc. My plan is to do this for 50 to 100 websites and would like to have your thoughts on if this is an acceptable strategy or not. Just to be clear, I am talking about redirecting only my websites that are in good standing, i.e. none of the websites I am thinking about 301'ing have been penalized. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tfbpa0 -
Avoiding 301 on purpose; Landing homepage linking to another domain with "Click here to go" and 5 sec meta refresh
Hello, Some users when they search for our site by using "ourbrand" keyword that ignore the first result (we will call it here ourbrand.de -not real name-) and they look for ourbrand.com . Even though we have that domain name also registered (indeed it also has a high ranking power) we are doing a 301 from the dot com to the dot.de . What we want to do is to index the homepage of the dot com, that is http://www.ourband.com as a secondary result while doing a 301 to any other internal URL of the dot com to the dot .de. Yes, we will loose link juice for the main domain but at least we will not loose visits from the brand traffic (which is our main traffic). So the question is, would Google index ourbrand.com if we show just a landing page that just show our logo, a "Click here to go to ourbrand.de" with a link to http://www.ourbrand.de and a meta refresh of 6 seconds to that URL? Additionally a cookie would be sent to the first time visitors, so in the next time they would be automatically redirected. PS: The 6 seconds is to avoid search engine consider it a "301" like it do with short meta refresh (not sure what time is the minimum to avoid be considered a 301). Any other suggestions on how to deal with this problem are welcomed
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zillo0