Buying existing domain: 301 or keep site?
-
I have the opportunity to buy a domain in the same vertical as my own (real estate) which has a decent link profile and good SERPs.
What are the pros and cons of keeping the existing domain and tweaking the content versus 301ing the domain to my existing domain or a page on my domain?
-
interlinking different domains targeting the same keyword universe can get you penalized, so if you're going to play the "more than one horse in the race" game keep them as independent as possible and know what you're doing and understand the risks.
-
Thanks for your thoughts Adam.
1. This other site doesn't have great content. It has a lot of links from pages with decent authority, but it didn't earn these links because of great content.
We are a small shop and creating content is a challenge just for one site. 301ing would certainly be easier.
2. This other domain has a focus on a nearby town that really isn't our area of focus. I think we could get lots of leads by getting this site up and running, but we really don't have the staff to handle this new geographic area.
From a keyword perspective, there is an interesting overlap. The subject domain focuses on Wenatchee Washington. Our site is about Leavenworth Washington, which includes Lake Wenatchee (which is an hour from Wenatchee, but shares the Wenatchee keyword.)
Geordie
-
Keep in mind however that links and rankings can degrade over time. If you aren't building new content on the new domain then the advantage may begin to fade after a while. It can be difficult to develop unique, fresh content for both domains.
It depends on how close your branding of each will be and if it's meant to drive sales leads then you also have to make sure to focus on the user experience for both.
-Jason
-
I'm massively in favour of keeping these domains rather than using a 301 redirect. Although you can gain some short term benefits from the link juice passed on with a 301 redirect, you are much better off in the long term by keeping the domain and creating links to your site from the domain. Here's why:
-
If you 301 redirect the domain, no new content will be created on that domain and in all likelihood, no new links will be created for that domain and you may even lose links. Whereas if you keep the domain, you can continue to build new content that attract more links.
-
If the domain is in the same industry and has good rankings in search engines then why not capitalise on that opportunity? Now you can have two sites that rank well generating more sales/conversions for your single business.
That's my thoughts,
Adam.
-
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
-
I need help on how best to do a complicated site migration. Replacing certain pages with all new content and tools, and keeping the same URL's. The rest just need to disappear safely. Somehow.
I'm completely rebranding a website but keeping the same domain. All content will be replaced and it will use a different theme and mostly new plugins. I've been building the new site as a different site in Dev mode on WPEngine. This means it currently has a made-up domain that needs to replace the current site. I know I need to somehow redirect the content from the old version of the site. But I'm never going to use that content again. (I could transfer it to be a Dev site for the current domain and automatically replace it with the click of a button - just as another option.) What's the best way to replace blahblah.com with a completely new blahblah.com if I'm not using any of the old content? There are only about 4 URL'st, such as blahblah.com/contact hat will remain the same - with all content replaced. There are about 100 URL's that will no longer be in use or have any part of them ever used again. Can this be done safely?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brickbatmove1 -
Gradual Increase in Domain Authority After Domain Migration But No Improvement in Organic Traffic Yet
We migrated our domain in early April and simultaneously added an SSL certificate. Everything was done by the books. All redirects implemented perfectly, very few errors. Google notified via Search Console. Despite all steps being done perfectly our domain authority dropped from 24 to 8. Organic traffic dropped from about 80 per day to about 10. Each month domain authority increases by 2 or 3. We are now back up to a DA of 16. But no improvement in organic traffic yet. At what point should organic traffic start to return? Hopefully the consistent improvement in DA is a good sign. I have been told that adding SSL and moving the domain at the same time was a very bad idea. We are starting link building next week. Hopefully that will help further. Any ideas as to when this situation will improve? Needless to say it has been awful for our business.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
SEO - Use pages on main site or set up outside keyword rich domains and websites
I have a client who is wanting to target searches for competitors products. His idea was to purchase domains related to the searches he's targeting (for example, people looking for another company's app) and to build out one page websites addressing the search query and why a customer would choose his app solution over a competitor. I know he'd have to build a handful of links to each site for any chance of success but I wanted to ask the following.. Would doing this be better than just building pages addressing the searches on his main website domain? Is there an SEO risk to doing this? Potential for a penalty? Anything we need to do to structure these in a way that won't violate Google's SEO guidelines? Any other thoughts on pros and cons of each strategy? Thank you! Ricky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Splitting One Site Into Two Sites Best Practices Needed
Okay, working with a large site that, for business reasons beyond organic search, wants to split an existing site in two. So, the old domain name stays and a new one is born with some of the content from the old site, along with some new content of its own. The general idea, for more than just search reasons, is that it makes both the old site and new sites more purely about their respective subject matter. The existing content on the old site that is becoming part of the new site will be 301'd to the new site's domain. So, the old site will have a lot of 301s and links to the new site. No links coming back from the new site to the old site anticipated at this time. Would like any and all insights into any potential pitfalls and best practices for this to come off as well as it can under the circumstances. For instance, should all those links from the old site to the new site be nofollowed, kind of like a non-editorial link to an affiliate or advertiser? Is there weirdness for Google in 301ing to a new domain from some, but not all, content of the old site. Would you individually submit requests to remove from index for the hundreds and hundreds of old site pages moving to the new site or just figure that the 301 will eventually take care of that? Is there substantial organic search risk of any kind to the old site, beyond the obvious of just not having those pages to produce any more? Anything else? Any ideas about how long the new site can expect to wander the wilderness of no organic search traffic? The old site has a 45 domain authority. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Does this require site-wide 301 redirects?
I have an old site that we are re-building, and also moving form Yahoo Stores to Big Commerce. yahoo uses site.com/page.html and BC uses site.com/page. Is there any SEO benefit to keeping the old .html format? some of the pages on the old site have no links to them from external sites. Do they even need re-directs, or should I just let Google find the new page equivalents when they crawl the new version of the site? While some of the old pages (primarily product pages) have OK urls, others have obscure product numbers as the URL. Obviously the latter need re-directing to a more relevant page, but what about situations like this:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grabapple
_/accessory-product.html _ > product-accessory
In this example, the existing URL is fine, except for the .html extention. If I just used the old URL, would having a mix of /sample.html and /sample pages hurt me? Thanks in advance for your help and input! Dave0 -
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing. Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing under same keywords " parts washers" Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mhart0 -
How to see which site Google views as a scraper site?
If we have content on our site that is found on another site, what is the best way to know which site Google views as the original source? If you search for a line of the content such as "xyz abc etc" and the other site shows before yours in search results, does that mean that Google views that site as the original source?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Changing domain extension to detoxify a domain
Hi there, A linkbuilding company that has been building links for us has not gained any sustained results. They have advised that our domain may be toxic, and that we should consider permanent redirecting from .co.uk to another domain extension in order to remedy this. Is this a recommendation worth considering?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Maximise0