Build Links By Purchasing Websites & 301 Redirecting To Your Main Domain

The title of this video post might get me in trouble because it might be a little bit misleading; but by purchasing "established" INDUSTRY RELATED websites and setting up a permanent 301 redirect to your main domain, you can quickly build authority and link equity. Enjoy the video!

For those of you who would rather read than watch the video, here is the recap.

This video is about a question that a few of us at SEO.com have received lately. The question is about purchasing websites and 301 redirecting those websites into your main domain to increase search engine rankings and increase link equity for your overall domain.

I've mapped out a website about snowboards. Your money site is where you are selling snowboards which is the home page of your domain. You then have your category or sub pages where you go into detail with each brand of snowboards like Burton Snowboards, K2 Snowboards, and Sims Snowboards.

I want to discuss the concept of purchasing brand new domains for the purpose of 301 redirecting those to your site to increase search engine rankings. For instance, I want to purchase a site about Burton Snowboards (www.burton-snowboard-reviews-by-greg.com), a site about snowboard tune ups (www.the-best-snowboard-tune-up-tips-from-greg.com), a site about snowboard boots, and a site about snowboard bindings. Each of these are all brand new sites that your purchased through a domain registrar like GoDaddy.

The question is, If I buy these domains and I permanent 301 redirect them to my main site, will that help boost my rankings? The answer is no. It's not going to help you whatsoever with your search engine rankings.

This strategy can help you when the sites have been on the internet for awhile, have age, content and back links coming into to them from other external websites. This builds up the reputation and link equity of each of the sites. At that point, this becomes a valuable strategy. For instance, you have site A, or the site about Burton Snowboards that has 800 links coming into it. If you are buying this site solely for the purpose of building links to your money site, you would take that site and 301 redirect it to the home page of your website, thus passing through the 800 back links to your website. (If you didn't notice in the video, yes, I said client links and looked away because there was a loud noise coming from the SEO floor.) This will help you because you are building up your link equity and the overall reputation of your website.

If you want to purchase the domains and keep the community that is already functioning, continue to work on the site and funnel the established link equity to your website with strategically placed anchor text links pointing to your main website.

Where the sub pages come into play is if site D, or the site about snowboard bindings, has sub pages about Burton Snowboards, K2 Snowboards, and Sims Snowboards and the sub pages have deep links coming into them, you will not want to take those sub pages and 301 redirect them to your home page; instead, 301 redirect them to the related sub pages on your main site. This will pass the appropriate anchor text and link authority to the right pages on your website and help those pages to rank for their keywords.

In conclusion, do not buy brand new websites in hopes to 301 redirect them to your website to achieve higher rankings. If you are going to pursue this strategy, you will want to purchase already established websites that have trust, authority and links coming into them and then 301 redirect.