Bought an expired domain- what's next?

[ongin234]

I read the pinned posts but couldn't really find an exact answer on what's the best strategy right now.

Two weeks ago I bought an expired domain from GD auctions. It has really nice links and was somewhat related to that project I am going to use it for. It has over a hundred indexed sites on google and I am happy that I managed to get it.

I want to use this domain for a money site. I will invest a lot of time into writing content and will do everything white hat from here. At least that's the current plan. What I am currently wondering is, what's the best way to keep as much link juice as possible from all the old backlinks?
Since I am not going to use it as a part of a PBN I can't just rebuild the site to it's old looks. I am planning on building something completely new so none of the old content will be on it anymore.

Do I 301 redirect those old URLs to the landing page? Or do I just start build everything from the ground up and all the old links pass the juice anyway?
What's best practice?

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[nodyguy]

Install Wordpress, download 404 to 301 plugin, set it to redirect to homepage if it's not default already.
That will redirect any old pages who are not exist on your new site to your homepage which will pass the juice.
Problem solved.

 

[ongin234]

Install Wordpress, download 404 to 301 plugin, set it to redirect to homepage if it's not default already.
That will redirect any old pages who are not exist on your new site to your homepage which will pass the juice.
Problem solved.

Thanks a lot for your reply!

That's actually what I was looking for!
Is it recommend to point some of those old pages to new posts or is it best practice to just point them all to the homepage, so it gets spread more equally?

 

[terrycody]

As he told, just download the link juice saver plugin (or any other similar plugin), and the plugin will auto redirect all non-exist broken/404 page of old site to only homepage, so this way you can save your link juice at most.

When you build site from ground, your homepage already got some juice, lets say %75 of old domain but apparently I don't know the exact number here.

As for your second question, you can do that, but you may still lose some small portion of link juice as you just save some power pages, and this way your site will get some 404 pages when users somewhere click the old backlink and will see 404.

 

[nodyguy]

Thanks a lot for your reply!

That's actually what I was looking for!
Is it recommend to point some of those old pages to new posts or is it best practice to just point them all to the homepage, so it gets spread more equally?

Ah, mate don't overkill, just point them all to homepage as this is natural and easy.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Thanks a lot for your reply!

That's actually what I was looking for!
Is it recommend to point some of those old pages to new posts or is it best practice to just point them all to the homepage, so it gets spread more equally?

Before you redirect, add some content to the newly bought domain and see if it goes live on Google. Give it a few days/weeks. If it does not go live, don't redirect it or you'll be hurting more than helping

 

[T2tkid]

What I do is install juice link keeper and send all the non-existing pages to the homepage. I have never had a problem with that anyways.

 

[ongin234]

Before you redirect, add some content to the newly bought domain and see if it goes live on Google. Give it a few days/weeks. If it does not go live, don't redirect it or you'll be hurting more than helping

Did I get this right? Before redirecting any of the old urls the root domain of those urls, I should wait a few weeks? Why is that? If the website was penalized at some fixing those old links wouldn't really change anything right?

Regarding the 301 redirecting to homepage. I read up on it and most people say google treats those redirects as soft 404s if they don't link to new content. That means all the link juice is lost. Isn't that true?

 

[710fla]

Did I get this right? Before redirecting any of the old urls the root domain of those urls, I should wait a few weeks? Why is that? If the website was penalized at some fixing those old links wouldn't really change anything right?

Regarding the 301 redirecting to homepage. I read up on it and most people say google treats those redirects as soft 404s if they don't link to new content. That means all the link juice is lost. Isn't that true?

Don't use a plugin to 301 all your 404. Google will treat it as a soft 404 as you said.

Instead 301 only the top pages with link juice.

 

[ongin234]

Don't use a plugin to 301 all your 404. Google will treat it as a soft 404 as you said.

Instead 301 only the top pages with link juice.

That's what I thought, which tool would you recommend to find those pages? Will AHREF work best? I could go for the trial version.
Other tools that might work?

 

[Nargil]

About 301 404.

Well, here is the problem... Google says that 301 redirect of dead pages is considered a weak 302 redirect, so basically doesn't preserve the link juice. I have a different experience, but some people here will also say otherwise.

In your place I would still use some kind of plugin to redirect dead pages to homepage, but I would also try to recreate a few pages/posts which have the most backlinks and link from them both in menu and contextually to your homepage and other internal pages too. This way you make sure that you retain the link juice within your site effectively.