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Domains
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My questions is what to do with old domains we own from a past business. Is it advantages to direct them to the new domain/company or is that going to cause a problem for the new company. They are not in the same industry.
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If they aren't in the same industry then doing a 301 redirect might make sense if you create a landing page reintroducing yourself to past clients and people who formally did business with you. So in this case the 301 redirect wouldn't be to your main page but to a specific page thanking them for their previous patronage and introducing your new brand. Hey you never know if they might be in the market for your new product or service. You might also consider selling your old domain since it most likely has good domain age and links pointing to it. Depending on the industry and authority of your site you might get a decent offer. Godaddy has an auction service or you can reach out to your previous competitors and offer to sell it to them and they can in turn do a 301 redirect pointing the old domain to theirs. Hope this helps and good luck.
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