Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?

[Blenny]

Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though.

What would be the best practice here?

1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website?

2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article

3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain.

Thanks for your input.

[Blenny]

Just to clarify the whole 'bad' content thing. The content is outdated but was good in its day..and did acquire links. It needs updated and improved..which I am prepared to do.

[billhartzer]

Blenny, I would be extremely cautious about redirecting another site to your site, even if it's ranking well now. There are a lot of issues that you need to consider, especially given the fact that all of the factors (links, history, content issues, etc.) are going to be passed on to the new site.

You'll need to look at the site's link profile in depth to make sure that the site isn't ranking well for a particular reason. The site could be ranking well right now because of certain links to the site: but Google, for example, has not penalized those links yet. I've seen sites that have a lot of low quality links that help a site rank: but when Google gets around to re-analyzing the site (i.e., Google Penguin), the site then literally falls out of the rankings and becomes penalized.

If it's a new site that you recently bought, are you sure the former site owner didn't just pump up the site's rankings in order to sell it? Perhaps they used techniques that would eventually get the site penalized?

I don't like to sound pessimistic here, but you have to look in depth into the site before you redirect it to your current site. Your current site could end up banned or could end up with a penalty, especially given the fact that you say that the content isn't that great.

[Blenny]

Thanks Bill -

You're exactly right - I'm definitely not considering redirecting the entire site for the reasons you point out - there ARE some shady practices to the product pages in particular.

What I'm wondering though is if I can at least gleam some content authority from individual articles and such?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Blenny,

What you have to think abut is that Google say never lead someone to a page, only for them to be redirected to somewhere they don't expect. Never try to bypass that.

However, there is no reason not to add some annotation to the post and link this to your current site, or even to a better blog post. Perhaps move away from links and just use co-citations and mentions.

-Andy

[Stellar_SEO]

It would be best to lightly revamp the poor content on site that is ranking for the important key terms you are targeting. In doing so why not just write a lead in or make reference to something on your main website to encourage click through traffic. By doing this, you will likely help to maintain the good rankings for the new 'junk' site while generating referral traffic to your main site. Additionally, a site ranking well for your target terms linking to your main site could be beneficial to your rankings.

[Blenny]

Thanks Andy and Travis -

Yeah, I think the enhancement and/or citation route is probably the safest for us. Thanks for your help!