Linking Root Domains after Site-Wide Redirect

[ClearPoint]

(Edited for simplicity)

Page #1 on site A has links from 5 different root domains. If I 301 that page to a page on site B that has zero links, will site B gain 5 linking root domains, per the Moz tool?

Thanks.

[WilliamKammer]

I believe Site B will gain one linking domain that is linked through a 301. The Site A 301 has more power due to the 5 links linking to it.

This question also depends a lot on why you're asking. If you are asking because Site A has a penalty and you want to keep that link juice by redirecting, then the penalty will travel with the 301, in my experience. So, from a penalty perspective, it is like those 5 links are linking to Site B.

[ClearPoint]

Ok thanks.

So if someone did a sitewide redirect, they would only technically gain one new linking root domain? That seems hard to fathom. So when people say "link juice is carried over" with a 301, that does not include the links actually pointing to the new destination, but their value is simply filtered through the redirecting url?

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

I think what William is saying is that site B will receive the benefit of a new linking domain, but that linking domain (site A) is many times stronger than site B because of its extra backlinks. As a result, site B still gains a good amount from receiving the redirect.

There are different opinions on this, i.e. on whether a redirect seems to help a lot more than this, and every case in which this takes place seems to have different results, largely because of all the other metrics affecting both sites. It's obviously hard to test this in a controlled environment.

There is debate around how much of a boost a cross-domain redirect actually has on the destination website - certainly in days gone by, the site at which the redirect is pointed will receive the vast majority, if not all, of the redirected site's rankings. This can still happen if all of the content on site A's redirected pages is reflected on site B, or if site B's content is sufficiently the same. However, if you were just redirecting for the purpose of making site B stronger and there was no real cross-over between the content of either page / site, this process shouldn't have a hugely beneficial effect on site B.