Can You 301 Unwanted Links to Another Site?
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I am trying to clean up my link profile, and have noticed that a I have a lot of crappy inbound links linking to some of my old pages. And those old pages have since been 301'ed to current pages.
My question is, is it worth trying to 301 those old pages, and thus those crappy links, to another website?
Would this do anything to clean up my link profile?
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If you really would want to do something about it, I would say that you will be better off returning 404's, as it is less likely for those bad links to carry any (bad) weight if they point to non-existing pages then it is to establish a relationship between websites by 301'ing.
This assumes that you will 301 the old pages to a website not owned by you, as I don't think you would want bad links to one of your other websites. And because if you 301 the old pages to a domain not owned by you, in effect you are establishing a relationship with a total stranger who may do any number of bad things on its own, which in effect could harm you later.
But if it was up to me, I wouldn't do anything about those bad links. Just try to get new links of better quality and they will very soon outweigh the bad ones. Also, it is quite natural for any kind of website to have low quality links, so IMHO there really is no need to do anything about those old ones, just build better new ones.
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Interesting, The only problem I can see with this is if anybody that is looking for your site will be redirected to the spam site. You might end up with a Branding issue.
Example. Say you have a children's site that sells clothes and toys. Now the spam site is an adult site. If you redirect to that site, your potential clients can be turned off to your brand.
Yes, this is an extreme case but non the less you need to determine if you are getting legit customers from your old pages that are being redirected to your new pages.
You can also just create a report and send it to Google via Google Webmaster tools. They can devalue those links and see that you are genuinely attempting to have a legit link profile.
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HAAH!!! I love your question. I don't know what the consequences would be, but do what you have to do. 301 them back to the source, Google or your competitor.
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