301 Redirecting an Auction Domain - my plan, suggestions?

[tyealia]

I have recently purchased a very high value domain off auction with alot of backlinks very related to my niche. I would like to 301 it to my site but the brand is obviously different and the pages and about us etc from my site.

I feel like I have some different choices for the redirect, if i could i would add a section under my menu about us called, (domain name i bought companyname) then add all the content from it there and 301 redirect all pages to subsequent pages so it looks natural.

some positives are it will look like the two sites did actually merge together and maintain the same content, the downside may be that i will have all this content indexed and running to dilute my sites link juice with alot of low value content, even though these pages will have their only link to them from the nav menu then a subsequent page.

i could keep the content on the site for a few months then slowly start taking it down after the 301 works, basically im trying to make this 301 redirect look like a merger of companies rather than a obvious ploy for link juice, not sure if this helps but if I was a google algo coder I would build in checks like, do the two sites have similar content / is the industry the same.

Another negative is that the 301ed domain has alot of links with its own brand name as the anchor hopefully that does not effect me too much but well see if all goes well this link juice boost will be a huge boon to my link power and get this site boosted, im also wondering if age carries through since the site im redirecting is 8 years old vs my current one which is new. I will post here what the results look like.

For now if anyone has any recommendations or personal experience i would be excited to hear it.

 

[Ryuzaki]

i could keep the content on the site for a few months then slowly start taking it down after the 301 works,

This doesn't work. If you have links going to a page that you 301 to a new destination and then you remove the 301, you also break the links. You have to maintain that 301 forever if you want the spiders to continue recognizing the link and giving the new destination page credit.

Another negative is that the 301ed domain has alot of links with its own brand name as the anchor

I've done this many times, on one site I have a handful of 301'd domains where the brand anchors far outweigh my own brand anchors. It's fine. I did nothing but get more and more traffic. Google will still understand that your site is associated with your brand, and those brand anchors aren't going to hurt internal pages rankings or anchor text ratios.

even though these pages will have their only link to them from the nav menu then a subsequent page.

I don't see the point in doing this. If you're going to merge the sites, merge them. The way I do it is take a list of all the old content and determine which posts are worth keeping based on:

• Links to the Page
• Quality of the Content

If the pages meet one or both of those items, I mark them to keep. Some may have links but need the content improved, which I'll do, because the links are worth it.

But then I go ahead and reformat each old post onto the new site, trying to keep the original post dates if I can see them, and I tuck each post in the appropriate category. I don't hide it elsewhere. After that, you can set up the 301's as needed and let the unwanted pages throw a 404 error.

Finally once I see everything working smoothly, I'll go back and add links to the pages that can be ranked and links from the new pages to the money pages I want to rank. Let the juice flow! You're talking about making it look natural. What you're suggesting with the menu item doesn't look natural. It looks like a page rank flow manipulation scheme. You need to weave the new content into your site like you would anything else.

 

[RomesFall]

Finally once I see everything working smoothly, I'll go back and add links to the pages that can be ranked and links from the new pages to the money pages I want to rank. Let the juice flow! You're talking about making it look natural. What you're suggesting with the menu item doesn't look natural. It looks like a page rank flow manipulation scheme. You need to weave the new content into your site like you would anything else.

How are you doing your .301s Ryu? Restoring original site and .htaccess each URL you care about, or straight via the registrar root > root? PHP?

 

[Ryuzaki]

How are you doing your .301s Ryu? Restoring original site and .htaccess each URL you care about, or straight via the registrar root > root? PHP?

I use the .htaccess method. I redirect a ton of pages and they all end up at new URL locations, the kind I can't even write any Regex for. I don't restore the original site, I restore content and add it into the appropriate existing categories.

 

[RomesFall]

I use the .htaccess method. I redirect a ton of pages and they all end up at new URL locations, the kind I can't even write any Regex for. I don't restore the original site, I restore content and add it into the appropriate existing categories.

Damn nice, so you don't even bother with the site? Just pointing the domain to a server, modifying .htaccess and letting it be? I have a bunch of domains to .301 so this will save mad time. Never thought about doing it like that.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Damn nice, so you don't even bother with the site? Just pointing the domain to a server, modifying .htaccess and letting it be? I have a bunch of domains to .301 so this will save mad time. Never thought about doing it like that.

I don't rebuilt the sites as they were, but I do port over content. I'm not just 301-ing URLs to existing posts (though that happens some). I rebuild the posts I want to keep onto the main site so when the crawlers hop through the redirects they see the same content again (a big part of it being legit).

 

[tyealia]

This doesn't work. If you have links going to a page that you 301 to a new destination and then you remove the 301, you also break the links. You have to maintain that 301 forever if you want the spiders to continue recognizing the link and giving the new destination page credit.



I've done this many times, on one site I have a handful of 301'd domains where the brand anchors far outweigh my own brand anchors. It's fine. I did nothing but get more and more traffic. Google will still understand that your site is associated with your brand, and those brand anchors aren't going to hurt internal pages rankings or anchor text ratios.



I don't see the point in doing this. If you're going to merge the sites, merge them. The way I do it is take a list of all the old content and determine which posts are worth keeping based on:

• Links to the Page
• Quality of the Content

If the pages meet one or both of those items, I mark them to keep. Some may have links but need the content improved, which I'll do, because the links are worth it.

But then I go ahead and reformat each old post onto the new site, trying to keep the original post dates if I can see them, and I tuck each post in the appropriate category. I don't hide it elsewhere. After that, you can set up the 301's as needed and let the unwanted pages throw a 404 error.

Finally once I see everything working smoothly, I'll go back and add links to the pages that can be ranked and links from the new pages to the money pages I want to rank. Let the juice flow! You're talking about making it look natural. What you're suggesting with the menu item doesn't look natural. It looks like a page rank flow manipulation scheme. You need to weave the new content into your site like you would anything else.

This is extremely helpful thank you! I decided the inner pages had very little value and 301ed the site directly to my homepage. I used a cpanel 301 since I was having some issues with the Htaccess redirect not taking effect.

Its been about a month since the site has been up I have built multiple backlinks to it (about 10 high quality niche relevant ones drip fed), i have launched a few citations and social signals at my anchor pages. I am now ranking for one small term I wasent targeting, nothing yet on any anchor pages but hopefully sandbox doesent last too long and all the link juice I built takes effect.

I have searched for time for a 301 to start showing results and gotten answers from anywhere between 3 days to 6 weeks so ill sit tight. Looks like my site is still in this proverbial sandbox, hope it pops out soon I have read it can be anywhere.