Quick question - looking to redirect a recently purchased domain to our existing site using a 301 redirect (we’ve always used the hyphenated domain, this new one is the non-hyphen version, so we’re hoping to catch the odd visitor who forgets the hyphen). The purchased domain is a few years old, has always been a ‘coming soon’ page from what I can see.
If the domain we just bought has had any previous black hat history or SE penalties, would a 301 redirect to our existing site cause any problems for our existing site with the search engines?
It could cause problems depending on how established the link profile of your current site and how bad the link profile of your purchased site. But usually, this is a good thing to do as there is just as much chance that the redirects will come with some benefit from the purchased sited backlinks.
The purchased domain has only ever hosted a single ‘coming soon’ home page - only that 1 page is indexed and no back links from what I can find. Been like that since it was first created according to Archive.org.
If you cannot find any backlinks and the only previous content on the site appears to be a ‘Coming Soon’ page then I think redirecting it should have no downside.
Just make sure to monitor your traffic to see if there is any negative impact.
