Puchased closed competitors domain name - what next?

[A Party Shop]

After a bit of opinion/advice.

One of our competitors closed a few months ago and yesterday I aquired their domain name.

To me, the value I would have thought, is in the directory links and other general links it has.

What would you do with it?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

There are a couple of options., if you simply 301 it then those links could well gradually die off. you could put up an advertorial site with links to your own relevant product page, or you could put a second cart there. each has its own merit, but either way, driving link juice and traffic are the best uses.

 

[A Party Shop]

I was my thinking that a mini site on the domain would be the way to go with links back to my website.

If I went down this route would it be ok putting it on the same server as the current site and would it be ok adding it to my current Google Analytics Account or should the two be kept seperate?

 

[ecenica]

I was my thinking that a mini site on the domain would be the way to go with links back to my website.

We also recommend this to our users. Google prefers unique content, and you'll also be able to gauge how much traffic the domain name is sending you.

If I went down this route would it be ok putting it on the same server as the current site

Yes. Some SEO myths

and would it be ok adding it to my current Google Analytics Account

Yes.

Rich.

 

[eog]

We also recommend this to our users. Google prefers unique content, and you'll also be able to gauge how much traffic the domain name is sending you.



Yes. Some SEO myths



Yes.

Rich.

If you want to get the full link value put it on a separate hosting account, if its on the same server or more specifically, ip address the link wont pass much authority.

 

[A Party Shop]

But if I decide on just putting a mini site up on the domain with links back to the main site it'd be ok on the same ip though wouldn't it?

I must add the there are hardly any inbound links to the domain mainly no follows from local directories so the value to me is these listings and people clicking through to me.

Remembering we are looking at the value of the local customer and not national.

 

[eog]

But if I decide on just putting a mini site up on the domain with links back to the main site it'd be ok on the same ip though wouldn't it?

I must add the there are hardly any inbound links to the domain mainly no follows from local directories so the value to me is these listings and people clicking through to me.

Remembering we are looking at the value of the local customer and not national.

No problems having it on the same IP in this situation and no point getting separate hosting if the link isn't going to be very strong anyway.

 

[jonny123]

Do you know why your competitor stopped using it?

If they spammed a lot Google may have given them a penalty - you would not want to risk associating your site with that. Do your research - check all backlinks and social media too if possible.

 

[eventdomain]

Ok, I know a lot about old domains dying off, and it will, you cannot stop this for this reason:

I had an old site where I changed its domain name to include an industry known keyword and the old site got a redesign totally changing it to something else. What I found was the old visitors returned, to find a brand new website, and the traffic was mostly lost over a 2 year period.

The links I had acquired (eg: 50'000), soon began to reduce over the same period. Basically, all the link swaps I did, the site owners must of been checking their links, found them removed/not present and de-linked, and yes, the site was set up to get the link juice from the old domain, but this doesn't work for the reason I've outlined.

Basically, you have a new domain, but its now going to cost a fortune to build a new site to take advantage of this.

 

[Ali-v-8]

go to wayback machine - take a look at the content on there - reinstall onto the website and link that back to yours - if they were on page one of google already the website will have authority.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

If you want to get the full link value put it on a separate hosting account, if its on the same server or more specifically, ip address the link wont pass much authority.

Can you back this up?

I'm the owner of an established hosting company but also have a lot of interest (and a decent amount of knowledge) in SEO. I've run repeated tests and never found using shared IPs being an issue.

 

[eog]

Can you back this up?

I'm the owner of an established hosting company but also have a lot of interest (and a decent amount of knowledge) in SEO. I've run repeated tests and never found using shared IPs being an issue.

If you acquire a domain for the purpose of linking to your main site for seo purposes, then having it on the same IP will reduce the power of that link. Its probably the main reason why there is a market for multiple c class ip hosting or seo hosting as its often advertised as. Even at that you if you have a network of sites used for linking you wouldn't really want them all on the same c block either.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

If you acquire a domain for the purpose of linking to your main site for seo purposes, then having it on the same IP will reduce the power of that link. Its probably the main reason why there is a market for multiple c class ip hosting or seo hosting as its often advertised as. Even at that you if you have a network of sites used for linking you wouldn't really want them all on the same c block either.

How are you measuring that? All the tests I've done (looking at PR, DA of the referrer, PR, DA and SERP of the receiver) have not shown the IP address to influence rankings. I've tested multiple times across different niches.

I'm sure Google is fully aware of the lack of IPv4 space remaining and treats IP sharing accordingly. I have a dislike of the SEO style hosting companies because it is such a waste of IPs.

 

[eog]

How are you measuring that? All the tests I've done (looking at PR, DA of the referrer, PR, DA and SERP of the receiver) have not shown the IP address to influence rankings. I've tested multiple times across different niches.

I'm sure Google is fully aware of the lack of IPv4 space remaining and treats IP sharing accordingly. I have a dislike of the SEO style hosting companies because it is such a waste of IPs.

Tests I have carried out and opinions i have gathered would contradict what you are saying. I can only wish that it was as simple as buying an unlimited shared hosting package for £8 a month and whacking up a network of 100 domains all on the same IP and passing all the link juice to a money site.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Tests I have carried out and opinions i have gathered would contradict what you are saying. I can only wish that it was as simple as buying an unlimited shared hosting package for £8 a month and whacking up a network of 100 domains all on the same IP and passing all the link juice to a money site.

How recently have you performed the tests? How recent are the opinions?

Granted, I didn't test it with 100 sites all linking to the same place (and I'd agree, coming from 1 IP address you'd be asking for trouble). But several (<20) domains on one IP I've seen no difference.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Like many instances cause and effect are being mixed.

Can you host sites on shared hosting/ Of course. Can you cross link? Of course. is it morelikely your spammy techniques will gt picked up if theya re all on the same Ip? ABSOLUTELY.

It is not the shared hosting that is the problem, it is the excessive cross linking.

 

[Ali-v-8]

The analogy is simple - crowd "a" with 10 people supporting a person in the crowd is good.
But 10 crowds each having a person supporting a person in crowd "a" will have more influence as there will be no bias (so to speak).

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

How are you measuring that? All the tests I've done (looking at PR, DA of the referrer, PR, DA and SERP of the receiver) have not shown the IP address to influence rankings. I've tested multiple times across different niches.

I'm sure Google is fully aware of the lack of IPv4 space remaining and treats IP sharing accordingly. I have a dislike of the SEO style hosting companies because it is such a waste of IPs.

There's definitely a footprint left by linking between websites on the same shared hosting, not using WHOIS protection, registering domains on different dates (maybe I'm too paranoid!), using different themes, different script types - Wordpress, Drupal, Magento, social bookmarking ones, etc.

I've carried out lots of testing in the past (lots of separate shared hosting vs seo hosting) but we're going back a while but these results will still be valid, even more so with Google's more advanced methods of "footprint" discovery these days.

Now I don't actually like SEO hosting companies either but for different reasons than you. When I researched the ways that a few of the companies sold them and when I tried them out, I wasn't convinced of two things:

1) That the IP blocks used by these SEO hosting companies would be footprint proof.

2) That using different/made-up/unique (basically ones that you define yourself) on these nameservers on these SEO hosting packages is a good idea.

So, as a result of my testing, I decided to use lots of different shared hosting and stick with the nameservers that are provided.

I think using some of the SEO hosting packages that I've seen will stick out.

For the record, I've never tested putting 20 or so, or whatever, IPs on the same shared hosting as this would be stupid and theoretical knowledge would say don't even test this hypothesis. Yes, naturally lots of people used the shared hosting, they might all link to the same source and this might be coincidence but come on...I'd rather be safe than sorry and what's the point of running a test like that.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Just to note that in the recent(ish) blog massacre by Google, they identified the 'seo hosting' resellers, and used them as a crawling point. pretty much anyone who was using SEOhosting.com (a division of hostgator), got their networked wiped out.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Yes they definitely leave a footprint and what anyone who expects a truly unique class C for $5 per month is naive. They obviously won't diversify the blocks enough and patterns will be left. When one person's footprint is discovered the others may be discovered too. The only way is separate shared hosting but also remember that I've you're using this method to get to know which hosting companies are the resellers of the larger hosting companies - I built a list at one point.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

There's definitely a footprint left by linking between websites on the same shared hosting, not using WHOIS protection, registering domains on different dates (maybe I'm too paranoid!), using different themes, different script types - Wordpress, Drupal, Magento, social bookmarking ones, etc.

I've carried out lots of testing in the past (lots of separate shared hosting vs seo hosting) but we're going back a while but these results will still be valid, even more so with Google's more advanced methods of "footprint" discovery these days.

Now I don't actually like SEO hosting companies either but for different reasons than you. When I researched the ways that a few of the companies sold them and when I tried them out, I wasn't convinced of two things:

1) That the IP blocks used by these SEO hosting companies would be footprint proof.

2) That using different/made-up/unique (basically ones that you define yourself) on these nameservers on these SEO hosting packages is a good idea.

So, as a result of my testing, I decided to use lots of different shared hosting and stick with the nameservers that are provided.

I think using some of the SEO hosting packages that I've seen will stick out.

For the record, I've never tested putting 20 or so, or whatever, IPs on the same shared hosting as this would be stupid and theoretical knowledge would say don't even test this hypothesis. Yes, naturally lots of people used the shared hosting, they might all link to the same source and this might be coincidence but come on...I'd rather be safe than sorry and what's the point of running a test like that.

Good points on the SEO hosting. If you are sensitive to this, surely you'd want to use an IP that has a few hundred "normal" sites on it? Which is what a typical shared hosting IP would. I'd imagine SEO hosting IPs are "known" to Google.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Good points on the SEO hosting. If you are sensitive to this, surely you'd want to use an IP that has a few hundred "normal" sites on it? Which is what a typical shared hosting IP would. I'd imagine SEO hosting IPs are "known" to Google.

Yes that's what I do. I register lots of different shared hosting accounts and share nameservers but, if you think about it, you can mix in some dedicated IPs and this is natural for e-commerce sites, etc.

I'm not saying that SEO hosting shouldn't work in theory, it should, but from what I've seen (and I'm not going to generalise here), I haven't seen it implemented properly...and the prices would state that costs are being cut somewhere and the sales pitch is for noobs with networking knowledge who want a common cpanel interface, don't want to manage separate details, want a quick fix to a complex problem.

You're right, many people who link to your website will be on shared hosting, shared nameservers, different Google Analytics but some will have dedicated, link their web 2.0 profiles, socially bookmark you, share with their friends on Facebook, etc.

On a side note, it amazes me how some people don't think things through in terms of SEO...do you find this? For instance, I gave on of my clients a back-link report today with a few forum profiles in the mix. He said he'd read somewhere that Google penalises forum profiles. I told him that I'd also provided the login details so he can actually use the forums, the forums used were established and in some way associated with his business sector. I asked him to think it through and he did and came to the conclusion that I wanted him to, he said:

1) Ah I see, so sometimes on a Friday after I decide to signup to a new forum and forget the login details and even forget that I signed up to it. Therefore, I have a profile but it's never used. I might do this with 5 at once.

2) I'm never really going to signup to a old but low ranking (maybe low pagerank) forum if it isn't quality or maybe I might sign up to one and then never use it.

Imparting this information into our SEO clients is vital I think.

 

[A Party Shop]

I think we would follow Ali-v-8's suggestion.

The problem now is that it'd be nice to use Wordpress as we're quite happy with it as a cms but does anyone know if we can use our stipulate our own urls rather than re-direct from old to new?

 

[Ali-v-8]

HOw long was the website down for - site:webaddress and see if any still exist in google cache - if yes they create custom 404 page that is infact a sitemap to new pages - pages that dont exist will pick this up instead - problem solved

I think we would follow Ali-v-8's suggestion.

The problem now is that it'd be nice to use Wordpress as we're quite happy with it as a cms but does anyone know if we can use our stipulate our own urls rather than re-direct from old to new?

 

[A Party Shop]

It was down since June 2012
Nothing cached but I can see some entries on Web Archive

I think as there is no (or very very little) link value and the value to us is all the local directory listings then perhaps I should just do an url redirect instead.

Does that sound like the best idea?

 

[Ali-v-8]

Can I PM you - I dont want to post more details about it.

 

[A Party Shop]

No problem.