Switching site content

[klsdnflksdnvl]

I have been advised to take a particular path with my domain, to me it seems "black hat" but ill ask the experts:

Is it acceptable when one owns an exact match location domain eg london.com, to run as a tourist information site, gathering links from wikipedia,bbc,local paper/radio/sports websites etc, then after 6 - 12 months, switch the content to a business site?

What could the penalties be?

Please advise...

[JDP]

I wonder the same thing.  It's way easier to build links for a non-commercial site. If you were to bait and switch,  I'd think you'd want to keep the basic content that was linked to to be fair to those who linked to you.

[Chris.Menke]

You could possibly get away with it it if the topic of the new site was in some way related to the content on the old site (the closer the better). However, the further away the new site topic gets from the context surrounding the back links that were created for the old site, the less less value it's going to get from them.

Regardless of your domain name, it still takes effort to build solid links. Going through the exercise of getting good links makes the company a better company, a better competitor, and a better search result and will most likely give a better ROI than a bait and switch  tactic.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

The problem with "bait and switch" is that it doesn't really work with content and relevancy signals, including anchor text.

Google has filed several patents over the years showing how they can devalue anchor text when they see changes in context. A broad example would be building links to a site about "red pickups" and then changing everything to "tom hanks". In this situation, you're likely not going to rank near as well for "Tom Hanks" after the switch as you did for "red pickups" so you likely wasted a lot of link equity.

That said, this technique does work "a little". That's why you see black-hatters buying old websites and throwing up spam. The new pages can sometimes get a little traffic based on authority and link juice, but in my opinion the ROI is so small, and the risks large, that it's not worth the effort.

A better strategy, in my opinion, is to build out your business website in full view of the world, and attract links that are related to your industry in creative and surprising ways. Instead of bait and switch, surprise and delight people with the unexpected. This way you retain 100% of any link equity you build and the rewards pay off greater down the road.

[klsdnflksdnvl]

Wow some great answers.

Thankyou.

Im in such a predicament now,I intended to keep the content and have a local section on the site with local events and local forum etc, thus also retaining a community around.

The anchor text i was going to build during the non-business phase was placename.

And as i want to build the new business as a brand its new anchor text would also be placename.

I am eventually wanting to pursue seoplacename, but i do have a lot of learning & practice to do yet (1-2 years) so, I wanted to build a "site age" to go with the 20 year domain registered age(is this relevant to rankings?).

Or would i be left with the wrong type of community...