Pointing multiple domains at one site? Here’s a few things to consider.

Over the last few years buying domain names for SEO value has become increasingly popular. The reality is, if someone spent years doing link-building but then for one reason or another the business failed and the domain expired, those backlinks could be yours.

If you want to do a deeper dive into understanding expired domains with backlinks feel free to read my article from earlier this month. In this article I want to cover a somewhat related topic, forwarding multiple domains to a site which you’d usually do for one of two reasons:

  1. Domains that are potential typos of your primary domain – in this case you’re just looking to capture people who miss a letter (or add one) when typing in your domain name and you want to make sure they end up at the right place.
  2. Domains with backlinks – you want the link juice from other domains to help your primary site/domain rank better in search

First things first, in most cases, pointing multiple domains to your primary site will be a good thing, so you should do it! But, and yeah, there’s always a but with just about everything in the SEO world, doing it the wrong way could do more harm than good. For example, knowing when to use a 301 vs 302 redirect is important:

If the domains have any kind of footprint that indicates there were nefarious activities in the past, I would not consider 301 redirecting the domains to the client’s active domain.

However, if the domains in question might have type-in value, you could 302 redirect them to the client site.(Source – Search Engine Journal)

I’ve heard some pretty scary stories about people buying domains with lots of backlinks only to find out that after redirecting it to another site it actually got the site de-listed. This is why it’s so important to use a tool like SEMRush or Moz to make sure you can know not just how many backlinks a domain has, but what those backlinks are.

The article I referenced above from Search Engine Journal does a great job going into detail on all the things you should consider if you’re planning on pointing multiple domains to your site. I don’t want to steal their thunder so if you want to do a deeper dive, make sure to head on over to Search Engine Journal and give it a read.

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton