How do I 301 redirect an expired domain?
- Thread starter Bigray
- Start date
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,617
step 1.... go to WBM (or use a tool like Archivarix) to restore ALL of the content that was on the domain previously (of course, this assumes that the domain is good, if you've purchased a bad / spammed / penalized domain this guide is probably useless)
step 2... after restoring everything, let the site sit idle for 6 months (this is needed to allow google to re-crawl and re-index everything that was previously indexed in google, and to also check whether any penalties have been imposed on this domain as - sometimes - google does show penalties in your GSC... oh, by the way, you should add the site to your GSC, otherwise you might not see any manual penalties that the domain might have incurred)
step 3... run a full site audit to detect any broken links, 404 pages, etc and fix / redirect them to wherever you want / wherever's needed
step 4... 301 redirect the pages you don't need anymore to other important / related pages in their categories (best choice) or to the homepage of the restored site (2nd best choice) if no appropriate categories / related pages are found on the restored website
step 5... decide what to do with the site, either...
- 301-redirect it (URL by URL if you have to and / or if this restored website has URLs that have good / powerful backlinks coming into them, or 301-redirect all of its URLs in one go using .htaccess redirection in case that you don't need to make use of specific URLs individually), or...
- continue working on it as your money site / PBN by publishing more content, indexing it, ranking it, all that crap...
NOTE 1: I have no idea how you can 301-redirect via .htaccess but you can google it (or even look it up on the forum, I remember that I saw someone sharing the exact code for this a few weeks / months ago)
NOTE 2: another way to see if there are any penalties on the domain is by using the site: operator. Just type site:mydomain.com (obviously replace "mydomain.com" with the actual domain name) into google and see how many results show up, but this check should probably be done after google have firstly re-crawled / re-indexed everything, otherwise I don't think you'll see accurate data...
step 2... after restoring everything, let the site sit idle for 6 months (this is needed to allow google to re-crawl and re-index everything that was previously indexed in google, and to also check whether any penalties have been imposed on this domain as - sometimes - google does show penalties in your GSC... oh, by the way, you should add the site to your GSC, otherwise you might not see any manual penalties that the domain might have incurred)
step 3... run a full site audit to detect any broken links, 404 pages, etc and fix / redirect them to wherever you want / wherever's needed
step 4... 301 redirect the pages you don't need anymore to other important / related pages in their categories (best choice) or to the homepage of the restored site (2nd best choice) if no appropriate categories / related pages are found on the restored website
step 5... decide what to do with the site, either...
- 301-redirect it (URL by URL if you have to and / or if this restored website has URLs that have good / powerful backlinks coming into them, or 301-redirect all of its URLs in one go using .htaccess redirection in case that you don't need to make use of specific URLs individually), or...
- continue working on it as your money site / PBN by publishing more content, indexing it, ranking it, all that crap...
NOTE 1: I have no idea how you can 301-redirect via .htaccess but you can google it (or even look it up on the forum, I remember that I saw someone sharing the exact code for this a few weeks / months ago)
NOTE 2: another way to see if there are any penalties on the domain is by using the site: operator. Just type site:mydomain.com (obviously replace "mydomain.com" with the actual domain name) into google and see how many results show up, but this check should probably be done after google have firstly re-crawled / re-indexed everything, otherwise I don't think you'll see accurate data...
Last edited:
Waifu_tatyana
Elite Member
- Apr 20, 2021
- 2,501
- 1,795
Wait this is new to me. After redirection I should keep adding articles on the expired domain?
Do I need to redirect the newly added articles too?
Another question: The expired domain I bought for redirection only had affiliate articles from 2019 and back then you could rank on a Page basis without topical clusters. But the resurrected affiliate articles are not ranking at all now because of low topical coverage (avg position 50 on GSC).
Do you suggest writing some AI assisted support articles on the site for quick topical relevance to boost the affiliate articles?
johndocument547
Junior Member
- Aug 12, 2023
- 110
- 36
you'll need to keep the domains registered where ever you are.
go to the DNS settings and create a redirect record, set the host to @ and send the destination to your new domain, set the redirect type to 301 Permanent.
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,617
why not? If it's a good domain and you have no use for it as a 301 and it regains its rankings it's pretty good as a money site, so why not use it like one?
you don't need to redirect, just publish the new content in one of the existing categories (or create new ones if you want)
hmm... that's a tough question for me, and I'm honestly afraid of giving an answer because I might give a wrong one...
What I will say, however is that you should check the affiliate pages and see if you can improve those, individually. Like, for example, if there are too many affiliate links on those pages you could remove all but one of those links and see if this solves anything... Or, if those affiliate pages lack authority and / or internal links you could add some internal links and / or external links to try and boost their PA / UR. Probably they just need some backlink love...
But again, I don't know how to deal with those pages, sorry! This was just a blind guess...
Last edited:
Bigray
Regular Member
- Jun 4, 2023
- 320
- 96
Thanks, but all this process just for 301?
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,617
if you want to get the value of the backlinks, yes. Otherwise it's not needed
D
Deleted member 752298
Guest
You can either do it through CloudFlare or use a WordPress plugin for that.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/eps-301-redirects/
frosty_snowman
Newbie
- Jul 25, 2023
- 9
- 2
I have an expired domain of a website which I have restored and was reindexed but it is unrelated to my site I would want to 301 it to. It has a ton of really good backlinks though, do you for see issues with the links carrying weight if the site contexts are different?
johndocument547
Junior Member
- Aug 12, 2023
- 110
- 36
no, redirecting passes link juice so it's a great method to build domain rank.
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,617
no idea to be honest... I mean, I do agree with @johndocument547 that the link juice will still be passed, but from a logical standpoint it's not normal to redirect to totally different niche and google might still punish you for it...
johndocument547
Junior Member
- Aug 12, 2023
- 110
- 36
if you have bad links then of course do not redirect that to your new site.
If the old domain was ranking it will do great for your new domain.
Read it from google themselves: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects
- Dec 7, 2008
- 2,971
- 1,099
On my opinion , I would suggest you to set up hosting, install WordPress, and use 301 redirects via cPanel for optimal control over your expired domain's future.
- Aug 4, 2015
- 6,042
- 808
If you want to redirect the entire domain to another site, you can use the Namecheap redirect feature. This is the easiest and fastest way to set up a domain-level 301 redirect.
If you want to redirect specific pages or posts from the expired domain to relevant content on another site, you can use WordPress and a plugin like Redirection2 or Yoast SEO3. This allows you to create selective 301 redirects for individual URLs.
If you want to have more control over the redirects and the hosting of the expired domain, you can use cPanel and .htaccess files. This allows you to create custom rules and conditions for the redirects.
If you want to redirect specific pages or posts from the expired domain to relevant content on another site, you can use WordPress and a plugin like Redirection2 or Yoast SEO3. This allows you to create selective 301 redirects for individual URLs.
If you want to have more control over the redirects and the hosting of the expired domain, you can use cPanel and .htaccess files. This allows you to create custom rules and conditions for the redirects.