Buying a used domain - redirecting, pluses etc?

[xtopher66]

Hi,

I have a 6 year old domain which has been the basis for my main business website operation. http://www.kent-website-designer.co.uk/

Im in the process of cleaning up some messy sitewide footer kinks that come to the  notice of Penguin update. I think I can clear up a lot of links but obviously need to add some better links for the future to improve.

Ive gone from #1 to #60. I was thinking of a rebrand as the EMD isnt doing much good anymore in benefits plus the drop in rankings and also Google definately favouring brand links over concentrated anchor texts. So maybe the time is ideal. The design needs a refresh anyway....

I have found a 1999 .co.uk domain which has some non keyword related 1999 links to it...nice. Its a very reasonable price. Its not going to have inbounds from my related markets, not ideal but it has no negative stuff either. Also its a very simple but rememberable name like Google or Yahoo. Great for branding.

Its parked but Waybackmachine shows indexing back to `99 and google cache has some content on it. However OSE shows low domain / page authority.

Im thinking of redirecting my current domain to the new one, passing some of the positives of age and titles...and replicating the site through 301`s.

Is this worth doing in anyones opinion? Only thing with my domain isany branding words are anchor text words too. I cant win.

[TakeshiYoung]

If you simply redirect your old domain to the new one, you will simply be transferring all the bad links from one domain to another. If you are starting fresh with a new domain, you shouldn't be using 301 redirects.

An aged domain can sometimes retain some authority, but if it's been parked for a while, probably not. If the domain does not have any active links coming into it, then just the fact that it's old does not mean it's going to rank well. Best to just pick a brand new domain that's a better fit for your brand.

[xtopher66]

Takeshi,

My theory is;

clean up links, improve link profile

use the old unused domain that suits my new branding direction for that reason only

use 301 to redirect content from old domain. plus it will pass some good

Theres nothing bad about that practice I believe.

I use the domain of choice because in registering a new name, both offer zero links but name suits.

note the domain has not been dropped....

Registered on: xxx 2005
    Expiry date:  xxx 2015
    Last updated:  xxx-2012

[TakeshiYoung]

Hey, that's fine, I'm just saying that if your old site was being penalized for bad links and you just 301 redirect it to a new site, the new site will likely also get penalized. If you can clean up the link profile, great. Note that 301s do not pass all the link juice, so you will be losing a little bit of link value by redirecting. As for the new domain, like I said, it's not going to have any value just because it was originally registered back in 1999. But if you just want it to branding, that should be fine.