Relaunching old site - Will it regain former link equity?

[Jeff_DomainTools]

We've got an older site with significant link equity. It 301 redirects to our current website, passing all traffic, link value, etc. The 301 redirects have been in place for several years. Since the original redirects were setup, the current website has acquired massive link equity above and beyond the redirects.

I am considering removing all the 301 redirects and bringing the old site back to life (same URLs, content, design as before). I would also keep the current website live as is. The goal is to capture more SERP visibility by having 2 website "brands" in the same market.

Will the old site regain it's former link equity or will we effectively be starting from scratch?

In other words, does Google consider how long 301 redirects have been in place?

[DougRoberts]

Hi Ben, if you remove the 301 redirect on the old site it should start picking up the old link equity again, but there's a couple of things to think about.

1. I'm guessing that there are likely to be no new links to the old site so the site's rankings may suffer with regards to freshness. If there are no fresh links to this site for a while then this could be a sign that it's no longer relevant/considered an authoritative site. You may want to think about regularly publishing and promoting fresh content over a few months to bring the site "back to life"

2. Do the old links still exist? Has there been any change in the authority of the linking domains? Make sire you check the links that are pointing to your old site. You may find that some have been removed or "decayed" and/or sites have been updated to link to your new site. Make sure the link equity you think the old site has still exists.

3. Are you certain that removing the 301 isn't going to significantly damage your current sites standings? How close is it ranking with regard to the competition? (Even a small drop in link equity can cause significant drops)

4. Some things to watch out for regarding the brand - be careful about confusing your target audience. Make sure that your two sites don't compete with each other. Make sure that they have unique value propositions/appeals. Make sure that you know exactly who you are targeting with on each site. Do they address different problems.

5. Consider the ROI! You'll be splitting your time between two sites. Can you commit to the necessary work required to build/promote both or will trying to run two sites reduce the time and attention you're giving to your old site? Instead of creating new content on two sites - can't you create new content/offerings on the one site?

Hope this helps!