Can I use a 301 redirect to pass 'back link' juice to a different domain?

[DGAU]

Hi,

I have a backlink from a high DA/PA Government Website pointing to www.domainA.com which I own and can setup 301 redirects on if necessary.

However my www.domainA.com is not used and has no active website (but has hosting available which can 301 redirect). www.domainA.com is also contextually irrelevant to the backlink.

I want the Government Website link to go to www.domainB.com - which is both the relevant site and which also should be benefiting from from the seo juice from the backlink.

So far I have had no luck to get the Government Website's administrators to change the URL on the link to point to www.domainB.com.

Q1: If i use a 301 redirect on www.domainA.com to redirect to www.domainB.com will most of the backlink's SEO juice still be passed on to www.domainB.com?

Q2: If the answer to the above is yes -  would there be benefit to taking this a step further and redirect www.domainA.com to a deeper directory on www.domianB.com which is even more relevant?
ie. redirect www.domainA.com to www.domainB.com/categoryB - passing the link juice deeper.

[TucsonAZWebDesign]

It definitely passes link juice, one of my extortion activism groups recently was attempting to stop an individual from monetizing a domain that publicly shames people. What the black hat hacker had done was identify dead links on a NY Times article and wanted the DoFollow links from such a authority

The individual purchased the domains and redirected them to his site and luckily we caught it on a backlink check and one of the group members was a journalist that was able to get them to remove the links.

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi DGAU

There is no doubt that cross-domain 301s do pass link juice and depending on who you listen to you may experience a 15% drop in the juice passed.

The problem is that if it is completely different and irrelevant content then you may do more damage than good.

Your second option, linking to a directory with relevant content is a much better idea and may help you get the link back if you can show them that the destination URL has more relevant content. It also means that you may keep it for longer. I should imagine that no Government department would want to link out to an irrelevant URL!

First, though I would enhance the page to make it as relevant as possible - then request the link back. You'll give yourself a much better chance of getting it!

I hope that helps, Regards Nigel

[paupastorlopez]

Hi DGAU,

it's a difficult question. I have used this technique 2 times (redirect a broken link on a .gov site to my site) and in my experience it did not work very well, didn't see improvements on rankings, but I'm not really sure about if it can work in some situations.

Probably, if the link was broken for a short period and you redirect it soon, it will be much better that if it has been a long time broken. If it's broken and you inmediately redirect it would be the perfect situation, each day from that I think it will give less link juice.

Just my opinion.

In any case, you don't have anything to lose by doing the redirect to your deeper directory, try it.

Greetings