Any risks involved in redirecting low quality Infringement website?

[vtmoz]

Hi all,

Recently we have over taken one of the websites (with Trademark Infringement )who been using our domain name in their domain. That website got no traffic or backlinks. Is there any risk involved in redirecting that website to our website?

Thanks

[Moreleads]

Hi VTMOZ,

If there is no issues with the domain, as you indicate,  than do a auto redirect 301.

greet

[vtmoz]

Hi Ende,

I have an extended question for this. If the acquired website is good with authority and backlinks, what is the best way to redirect? Auto redirect or manual redirect (by set up page with our website link)? If it's an auto redirect, which is best? DNS or 301 redirect? I posted new question here.

https://moz.com/community/q/redirecting-acquired-website-dns-or-301

Thanks

[Moreleads]

Hi vtmoz,

On your first question i wouldnt do a redirect i would show a message with a link to your website for users ending up on that domain.

The difference is that with a 301 redirect you are telling Google to pass all the link equity of that page to the page you are redirecting to (the good and the bad)  when you implement a link on the page pointing the users to your correct website you can use a nofollow which will result in google not passing any link equity at all.

[vtmoz]

Hi Ende,

I need your valuable suggestion on this. We have recently taken 4 infringement domains. One of these have high spam score as per Moz. I can see their website in past and employed some low quality content. So, I wonder how to proceed on this? Can we still auto-redirect this or show a message with our website or completely ignore?

I have one more serious question: What will be the difference between auto-redirecting and redirecting them with our website link? Technically will it makes a difference to Google? I am curious to know if there will be any difference for Google when we auto redirect or let visitors click on our website?

Thanks

[Moreleads]

Hi VTmoz,

Although it sounds there is no big risk involved to do the redirect when there are no backlinks and no traffic, it might be better to err on the safe side and simply setup an information page on the domain with a link to your main domain. So that way when people accidentally enter the taken over domain they can easily navigate to your correct site, and you don´t risk any legacy issues with the taken over domain.

If you do decide to redirect you could additionally check in the GSC for manual penalties, check spam score on Moz and citation flow / trus flow on Majestic and view archive.org to check for any spam content in the past (though all these are unlikely when you have not found backlinks or traffic).

Anyway good you got the domain that was infringing on your trademark!