Is using frameset to usurp PR from an old domain okay?
-
I have a competitor who leapfrogged in Google SERPs after they purchased a domain that was let let go by a related authoritative organization and used it to redirect traffic from it to their website using frameset code. Is this a legit practice? Is this blackhat SEO? Here's the entirety of the code from the retired domain:
<html> <head> <title>www.competitors-website.com title> <META name="description" content="www.competitors-website.com"> <META name="keywords" content="www.competitors-website.com"> head> <frameset rows="100%,*" border="0"> <frame src="http://www.competitors-website.com" frameborder="0" /> <frame frameborder="0" noresize /> frameset>
html>
-
No its not.
the rank for the old domain is not transfered to the new domain using frames.
calling and old page may cause it to be loaded in a frame located on the new domain, but a 301 will do this and transfer the link juice also. So the 301 wins hands down every time.
-
I'm convinced my competitor used this tactic for the sake of usurping PR and it worked. The domain they purchased was previously used for an "official / government" type of entity that had domains (.edu types) with PR ratings of 7 linking to it -- the result is the site that's being redirected to wound up with a PR6 and jumped up the SERPs.
I sent several spam reports to Google, and it seems to have resulted in the old domain name being demoted in the SERPs for the relative keywords, however the site that benefited stayed in its place on the SERPs (#2) for the primary keyword which was applicable to both. Interestingly enough, I just now looked and their PR dropped to 5 from 6.
Seems to me the site that was enjoying the boost should have been demoted as well.
Bottom line is I can't see me trying to do the same thing albeit I have a few other domains that I purchased that had relevant traffic coming to them and I did a legit 301 to my domain for the sake of the referrals and not for a bump in the SERPs or PR.
So now the question is: Is it considered good practice to buy an abandoned domain that has relevant / related traffic coming into it and redirect that traffic to my website using standard 301 redirect code?
-
I cant see this working, better to point links to your site from the compeditors site.
You can 301 redirect, but i believe that it would not work well, as SE's can see that the sites are different. and why would they let you have the links of anouther site.
if you coped the content from the old site to the new then diod a 301, it would like you were swapping domains or merging sites and that would be ok, but simply trying to pass the credirt fromone web site to anouther web site i dont think they will like.
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
-
Domain switch planned - new domain accessible - until the switch: redirect from new to old domain with 307?
Hi there, We are going to switch our local domain oldsite.at to newsite.com in November. As our IT department wants to use the newsite.com already for email traffic till then, the domain newsite.com has to be accessible for public and currently shows the default Apache page without useful content. The old domain has quite some trust, the new domain is a first time registered domain (not known by search engines yet and no published anyhow). The domain was parked till now. I am aware of the steps to take for the switch itself, but: **what to do with the newsite.com domain until everything is prepared for the switch? **I suppose users or search engines find the domain and as there is no useful information available it harms us already. My idea was to 307 redirect newsite.com to the oldsite.at but the concern is that this causes problems as soon as we switch the domain and redirecting with 301 from oldsite.at to newsite.com? Do you have any objections or other recommendations? Thank you a lot in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | comicron0 -
Cross domain canonical and hreflang
Hi Guys, So we are close to launching our new site and just need to be sure that our canonical, duplicate issues are sorted before launch. So here is our current situation. The current site is on trespass.co.uk. Then new site will be on trespass.com. The new launch is global and we will have the 3 stores within magento all in english. Trespass.com for the UK
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trespass
Trespass.com/US for US
Trespass.com/ROW for all other countries On trespass.com we have the following: On trespass.com/US we have the following: On trespass.com/ROW we have the following: This is how the magento developers.design company have set it up but am I right in saying the canonical tag for each store (/ROW and /US) should point to Trespass.com as the only difference is in the pricing £ $ and euros? Thanks for your help0 -
Removing 301 redirect from 2.5 yr old domain
Hello, Need Advise. We are in Automobiles We have an Automotive site - build 3 yrs back - which is our main site (Site A) We built a separate niche site on Used cars 2.5 yrs back (Site B - url http://www.usedcarindelhi.com) - did seo - promote it for a year and later on in feb 2013 - did 301 domain redirection to Site A Now - we thinking to rebuild Site Site B again and remove redirection Will there be any harm on Site A, as we have now removed the redirection or shall we pass on link from home page of Site B to Site A i.e say Powered by Site A (on Top) or at all no direct linking is actually needed. PS :- Also - can anyone let know the backlink quality of www.usedcarindelhi.com. Its PR 3, DA - 18, Majestic Citation Flow - 18, Trust Flow - 11 . Pl advise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Is it worth redirecting an old domain name which was hacked to my new website?
I had a website which got hacked and malware added to it. I have since closed that website down but I still have the domain name. That domain name prior to the malware was incredibly well ranking for its niche and had a good range of high quality links to it and a domain age of 6 years. I'm now creating a new website which is similar to the old one (the same but with a different platform and layout). Is it a good or bad idea to redirect the old domain name to the new website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | james.rose0 -
301 redirect to multiple domain
Hi guys, I have a domain A, B and C. The domain A was an association of two business and they are about to split. Parts of domain A are going to be redirect to domain B, but some content belong to the domain C. So my question : Is it possible to 301 redirect some pages from A to B and some other pages from A to C and if yes, what would be the impact on SEO ? Thanks a lot!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StevePatenaude0 -
How to Find problem domain history
Hi I have what most of you may think is a dumb question but here goes. please be nice... 🙂 So I have a client (http://www,ace-alarms.co.uk) who are having a real problem ranking for ANY of their key words. I know it's a reasonably competitive area but I've not seen such a stubborn domain and it seems that no matter what we do there's nothing listed. i'm thinking that there may be a problem with the domain name. My question is; how can I find out if this is a problem domain. Thanks in advance Steve
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevecounsell0 -
New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!0 -
Use of the Canonical Tag, Both Internally and Cross Domain
I've seen the cross domain canonical not work at all in my test cases. And an interesting point was brought to my attention today. That point was that in order for the canonical tag to work, the page that you are referencing needs to have the exact same content. And that this was the whole point of the canonical tag, not for it to be used as a 301 but for it to consolidate pages with the same content. I want to know if this is true. Does the page you reference with a canonical tag have to have the same exact content? And what have been your experiences with using the canonical tag referencing another page on a different domain that has the same exact subject matter but not the exact duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GearyLSF372