Effect of Redirects

[Thomas Andreas]

Hi all!
I am looking to better understand the value of two types of redirects.
#1 Lets say you have a domain name that is
cazinoslots.com (this is your main website)

now you also own casinoslots.com. casinoslot.com, bonusslotcasino.com

Now consider that casinoslots.com. casinoslot.com, bonusslotcasino.com - dont have any links toward them and dont have any age (have not been live before)
Do you believe that doing a redirect from casinoslots.com. casinoslot.com, bonusslotcasino.com - to - cazinoslots.com. can have a positive impact on your main page cazinoslots.com and help it rank for casinoslots (with an s) for slot and for bonus slot?

Now for scenario #2.
Now consider that the mainpage is cazinoslots.com
you again own casinoslots.com. casinoslot.com, bonusslotcasino.com - in this scenario they have both links towards them and they are live. And now, I kind of remove the content for them and I just send redirects from them to cazinoslots.com (my main page) - will it bring additional value to my main page or will it just be viewed as spammy.

please see them as independent scenarios )

 

[NDG]

I would say that #1 would probably not have any effect on your site, except that you would be able to bring
in traffic from people that might type in those domain names and they would be redirected to your other site.

If the sites are like scenario #2 where they have authority, backlinks, and they are similarly themed.. then a redirect
could give your main site a boost depending upon the authority and power of the links pointing to those domains.
I wouldn't advise that this is done with a large number of domains, because it would begin to look unnatural.

 

[Thomas Andreas]

Thanks NDG. any other thoughts?

 

[pco]

I wouldn't advise that this is done with a large number of domains, because it would begin to look unnatural.

any info on how much would be too much?

 

[NDG]

It's difficult to give a number on this. If you have a few authority sites that you can no longer keep updated
for lack of time or whatever reason, and you decide to redirect them to your main site, then I don't see a problem.

If you have dozens of sites or if you are buying many expired domains and you are redirecting them to your main site
and that main site does not have any link diversity, then it's going to look unnatural and it could create a problem.

 

[the_dave]

I'm pretty certain that the first method you describe will have zero impact on your rankings.

The second method, if you use a 301, will definitely help but how much depends on how well the domains were ranking previously. For example if cazinoslots.com currently ranks #15 for the term 'casino slots' but casinoslots.com ranks #10 for that term I'd expect a 301 to cazinoslots.com to move it's rankings up to #10. It's harder to judge the reverse of this but again I'd say it net impact would likely be positive.

 

[Nerdybet]

It will have no effect on rankings or SEO, as long as these sites do not have a link profile (i.e ref.domains). If you run a 301 re-direct from websites with a lot of content and ref. domains you'll run into two major issues that must be dealt with beforehand.

1. Your anchor text profile could get srew*d up as Google will treat all anchors in a 301 as belonging to the target site. Worst case scenario, you'd trigger a penalty, say if you 301 an EMD with a high number of exact match anchors to a generic domain.
2. You'd have to deal with canonical content and make sure the right pages are being indexed. So if both sites have duplicate content, you'd need to add a "rel canonical" attributes to inform google of this.

I don't know if there's a limit on how many domains you can re-direct, but just don't go overboard with it. Regardless, it has zero effect on your onsite SEO value (given the domains are clean) so I don't see the point of doing it. Unless you own a bunch of EMDs that is...

 

[Frank]

if they were previous existing sites then theat method used to work well.. just domains never used 0 help, and the days of using old powerful domains redirected seem to have gone.. it used to be a great way of ranking churn and burn sites for 3 - 6 months