Domain Change Of Address & Sale
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Hi Moz community
Let's say I have two domains
domain1 is my main website.
Domain 2 was a peripheral side project I was working on. I recently decided to shut it down. So I hooked up the proper 301s and filed a change of address request with Google Webmaster tools.
I have had an offer for someone to purchase domain2 - I have absolutely no use for it and would like to sell it. I just want first to figure out that:
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I can do this without losing any ranking to my main site.
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I can disassociate this domain from myself and my Company completely.
I don't want any of the work we put into it to transfer to the new owner.
How can I do this?
thanks!
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Thank you so much I really appreciate the response.
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There's no perfectly clean break with any domain for one important reason - back-links. If the side project has solid back-links and then you disconnect it (break the 301, essentially), you'll lose the positive impact of those links. There's no easy way around that.
At the same time, the new owner will potentially benefit from those links. The only way to disconnect that benefit is to individually request that the linking sites switch their links to your site. If the new site changes ownership and drastically changes content, then Google will eventually see those links as irrelevant and devalue them, but that's probably going to take a while.
I'd worry more about your loss of benefit than about the new owner getting some unearned but probably temporary benefit, honestly. The other issue would be any brand awareness around the secondary domain - since that's tied to the name/domain, you can't really cut that loose.
Since it's a side project, I suspect this isn't a big risk, but it's really tough to know without more details.
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I would be interested in any type of feedback with this situation.
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