[CASE STUDY] How will a 301 Redirect affect my website?!

I have always been curious to try the power of 301 redirects but my niche is very very specific and finding a relevant domain to my niche was almost an impossible mission. I have contacted many sellers, and tried many auctions but had no luck at all.

Last month I found a domain at G0daddy auctions. 100% relevant to my niche. Clean, not spammed. It has links from Wikipedia and some other authority blogs. The domain used to be a local business which seems to have closed. It also has the main keyword on the domain name.

Here is how the domain looks:




I followed the Guide by @janist : https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/how-to-301-an-expired-domain-guide.1358904/

One of my team members has recreated the whole site and I will let it sit for 2-4 weeks.

90% of the Links are pointing at the homepage so won't be an issue redirecting them.
There is one inner page that has links from Wikipedia and 4 other authority blogs. So I decided to recreate the same page on my main blog.

I will give an example to understand it better:
Let's assume my site is on the TRAVEL NICHE.

The expired domain has one inner page with links from Wikipedia and some other authority blogs that looks like this: expireddomain.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY

I have created one new page on my money site: moneysite.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY
The page is already indexed in google (posted it 2 weeks ago).

The 301 will be like this:

Expireddomain.com ==> 301 ==> moneysite.com

Expireddomain.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY ==> 301 ==> moneysite.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY

The expired domain was set live on 30 May. I will wait for one more week and will do the 301.

Will keep track of the rankings and keywords to see the performance. I will not do any other Link Building until the end of August so we can better understand the effect of this 301.

Good luck with the journey.

This is a very interesting case study.
Curious to see your results.

Be careful and follow the rankings closely. I have seen other people removing the 301 after 3 months due to negative effect.

Pretty interesting and yes, the page level redirect works much better than the domain level 301 redirect.

krishnaverma said:

Good luck with the journey.

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Its more like a case study, not Journey

Thanks for the kind words.

praetserge said:

This is a very interesting case study.
Curious to see your results.

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Thanks

allan.d said:

Be careful and follow the rankings closely. I have seen other people removing the 301 after 3 months due to negative effect.

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Yeah, I have heard that too. Fingers crossed.
Hoping for the best

RealDaddy said:

Pretty interesting and yes, the page level redirect works much better than the domain level 301 redirect.

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Lets see how it turns

How much you paid for the domain?

wisca said:

How much you paid for the domain?

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$400

Quick Update:

Did the 301 redirect on 17 June just like I mentioned here:

aristocratic said:

The 301 will be like this:

Expireddomain.com ==> 301 ==> moneysite.com

Expireddomain.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY ==> 301 ==> moneysite.com/visit-Brooklyn-NY

Click to expand...

Will follow the rankings closely and see the effect of this 301. Probably will take 1-2 months to see some movements.

Wish me GL

Following, thanks

Interesting, thank you for this experiment, will follow

following

Interesting case study, following.

Following

following

Interesting, following your case study.

I'm also doing something similar. I will see the outcome of your case study.

Interesting, following. BTW wish you good luck too

Following too

Following - I think you should use the acquisition page strategy approach only because I tried this with my personal 2 websites, and 301'ing Brand B to Brand A at domain level created confusion in the serps. So I removed it, now things back to normal but I plan to do the 301 following the acquisition method cause it makes the most sense