Need 301 Advice with a Recovered URL from a Domain Typosquatter
-
I am new to a SMB and someone bought the plural version of our domain back in 2005 and has yet to let it expire. The domain was just renewed for another year so we finally decided to contact a lawyer and go through the domain name dispute process. This seems like a pretty cut an dry case and the lawyer is very confident that we'll have the domain within 30-40 days.
Currently the plural version domain 303s to spammy web pages, shows shady ads and is just a malicious looking page in general. I am not savvy enough to know the exact complexities of what's happening on the backend but it's spammy.
Knowing the history of the plural version domain, how would you treat it after we acquire it? Obviously, I wouldn't want to put our site in jeopardy by 301ing the plural version of our URL to our current healthy site but at the same time many customers might go to that domain by accident so eventually I'd like to 301 it. If it's any help, the plural version has a robots.txt that prevent G from crawling it..thank you in advance for your guidance!
-
Thanks so much for the insight Dirk, that seems like a good course of action for us
-
Hi,
I wouldn't worry too much about redirecting it to the normal site. It has lousy content at the moment, but the moment you take ownership, you'll redirect it to your site with quality content. Anyhow, Google will see that the ownership has changed as the DNS records are changing, there will be a new owner in webmastertools, the content is changing etc.
As it is a typosquatter, he will probably not have put the effort to build (cheap & spammy) links to this domain, and will not have done many efforts regarding SEO - so probably from an SEO perspective this is probably a quite clean site.
You could put the domain a few months in quarantaine to be sure- putting a static html page like 'did you want to visit mydomain.com - click here', activate webmastertools, check the linkprofile, see if any warnings from Google are coming.
If everything looks ok after a few months, you just activate the redirect
rgds,
Dirk
Update: noticed to late that the robots.txt is blocking googlebot - so Google officially isn't aware that the site is linking to low quality site - so would not have too many doubts on redirecting
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
-
Multisite domain
good morning I have a wordpress site I have activated the multisite, currently the site has a domain authority of 8, when I publish a post, it is indexed quite quickly, if I publish a post in a language other than the /es subdomain it takes 24 hours why? If the author domain is the same, why does the employee take longer to be indexed on Google? Thank you
Technical SEO | | alainscilly770 -
Removed URLs
recently my site has got some problem some of my URLs are repeating in the SERP ! I removed them by search console and also site : but they show up again Does anyone know what is wrong?
Technical SEO | | talaabshode20200 -
301 redirects for all urls - legal dispute
The website in question is a very high traffic website with substantial credibility in it's subject matter (sorry, can't share more details) that delivers an overwhelming majority of traffic from SEO, much of which is new visitors. A legal dispute has resulted in both parties agreeing to forward a percentage of the total URLs to alternative websites (only 1 website for each party). All URLs for the domain will be forwarded elsewhere. It does not make sense to me that the "sum of the parts" will be as strong once the redirects are implemented but I am looking for feedback. It is fair to say that the alternative domains of each party are no where near as strong as the domain being "parted out." Will the SEO juice be distributed to each domain in full? Will both parties lose out substantially? Feel free to ask for clarifications and I'll do the best I can given the legal parameters. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ReachMaineAgency0 -
Will doing a 301 redirect for one domain to another give the latter domain the formers links?
I have some websites that I built a few years ago that are still in existence, but I no longer have access to the sites as they weren't hosted by myself. These sites all carry a "Designed by Me" text on the footer with a link to my (now old) website. I have since done 301 redirects on the domain names that are used in the footers of these sites so they link directly to my new site. However, will these websites now show up on Google Webmasters for example as external links to my site?
Technical SEO | | mickburkesnr0 -
URL Format
Often we have web platforms that have a default URL structure that looks something like this www.widgetcompany.co.uk/widget-gallery/coloured-widgets/red-widgets This format is quite well structured but would it just be more effective to be www.widgetcompany.co.uk/red-widgets? I realise that it may depend on a lot of factors but generally is it better to have the shorter URL if targeting the key phrase "red widgets" One thing, it certainly looks a bit keyword stuffy with all those "widgets"
Technical SEO | | vital_hike0 -
I need to know more clearance on rel=canonical usage than 301 redirects ?
Hi all SEOmozs, As we all know purposes of rel=canonical , I have a query to ask that If we don't have any possibility to use 301 redirects on a domain , can it be really right to use rel=canonical on an old domain to let search engine to treat those all pages should be not priority where the domain we are being promoted in the market to list up instead that. I found this interesting Matt Cutts video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJK5Uloy76g where he has told or cleared the point very nicely, yes we can use it if there is no possibility in your older domain or pages. So here i am asking the same to know more detailed clarity on this so that i can be more confidence on it. I have been seeing issues in my domains where old one domain comes than new domain why with new domain contents, and can it be really very good to bring new domain with **rel=canonical without using 301 redirect :
Technical SEO | | Futura
Old : kanin.com (leaving) New : kangarokanin.com (promoting) Where i might have not used yet the rel=canonical in old domain, will be going to use it soon , after finishing this discussion.** Regards,
Teginder Ravi tcSnN.jpg tcSnN.jpg dGd34.jpg0 -
301 Redirect
Hi there, We are re-branding & re-structuring our website, there will be quite a number of 301 re-directs, possibly hundreds. The question is: Should i wait until the re-branding has been completed and do al the 301's in one go?, or should I try and do 301's as i go along? Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | Paul780 -
Permanent 301 redirects vs canonical urls?
Im moving a website that was .php to wordpress with a few static HTML pages. Which is better use permanent 301 redirects and delte the old pages, leave the old pages and use canonical urls and 301 redirects or something else?
Technical SEO | | senith0