Saving Backlinks on an Expired Domain Using Redirects?

[jd90]

Question about saving backlinks.

So I'm buying an established site but it's got a lot of old posts that are 404 due to being hacked a few years back. Some of these posts have very strong backlinks. However, the permalinks are site.com/date/post-name OR site/com/post/post-name.

To save these backlinks as I revamp the site, I can 301 redirect these permalinks to a new article on a similar topic with a different slug? I don't need to keep the same post name etc?

 

[Ryuzaki]

To save these backlinks as I revamp the site, I can 301 redirect these permalinks to a new article on a similar topic with a different slug? I don't need to keep the same post name etc?

Correct. You can 301 to wherever. The slug name doesn't matter. What matters is topical relevancy, otherwise Google might consider it a "soft 404" and still not count it. This is to combat all the spam that uses lazy redirects, like redirecting everything to the homepage, etc.

 

[jd90]

Correct. You can 301 to wherever. The slug name doesn't matter. What matters is topical relevancy, otherwise Google might consider it a "soft 404" and still not count it. This is to combat all the spam that uses lazy redirects, like redirecting everything to the homepage, etc.

Awesome helps a lot. What about all the backlinks to 404 pages. Do they still count towards DR? Or are they essentially nullified until it's redirected to a page?

Secondly, if a link is coming from a 404 page, that would mean there's no juice being passed even though it's indexed and picked up in Ahrefs?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Awesome helps a lot. What about all the backlinks to 404 pages. Do they still count towards DR? Or are they essentially nullified until it's redirected to a page?

Secondly, if a link is coming from a 404 page, that would mean there's no juice being passed even though it's indexed and picked up in Ahrefs?

Ahrefs has absolutely nothing to do with page rank or Google or links counting. They have zero association with Google. Ahrefs is a helpful tool to give you information. It's not a complete list of every link and Google doesn't use any of their information in their own algorithm.

If a link is pointed to a page that doesn't exist (404) then the link doesn't count (with Google). That's why you want to redirect them to a topically relevant page that does exist, so that the link will count.

If the link was aimed at a 404 page and you fix it, it may begin to count as soon as Google recrawls it and see's that it's now a link that aims at an existing page, or it may take time for Google to begin to trust that link. But eventually it will.

 

[jd90]

Ahrefs has absolutely nothing to do with page rank or Google or links counting. They have zero association with Google. Ahrefs is a helpful tool to give you information. It's not a complete list of every link and Google doesn't use any of their information in their own algorithm.

If a link is pointed to a page that doesn't exist (404) then the link doesn't count (with Google). That's why you want to redirect them to a topically relevant page that does exist, so that the link will count.

If the link was aimed at a 404 page and you fix it, it may begin to count as soon as Google recrawls it and see's that it's now a link that aims at an existing page, or it may take time for Google to begin to trust that link. But eventually it will.

Great, one last question. Is there a correct procedure for removing a post from one site and posting it on another?

Or it just a case of deleting it then posting it on the new site?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Or it just a case of deleting it then posting it on the new site?

This is the procedure, but then you have to set up the 301 redirect if you want all the old metrics to pass over (links, time, trust, etc.) There are other ways but ones that are overly complicated, dealing with canonicals and whatnot. Just make sure you continue to renew the old domain so you can keep the redirects live.

 

[jd90]

This is the procedure, but then you have to set up the 301 redirect if you want all the old metrics to pass over (links, time, trust, etc.) There are other ways but ones that are overly complicated, dealing with canonicals and whatnot. Just make sure you continue to renew the old domain so you can keep the redirects live.

Easy then. Delete, repost. 301 from original site to new site

 

[Taq]

Just tagging on. Is it best to use a plugin for a 301 or have it done at host?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Just tagging on. Is it best to use a plugin for a 301 or have it done at host?

It really doesn't matter. You can do it at the server level like in the .htaccess file of an Apache server, or you can do it as a PHP redirect like the plugins will do. PHP will be slower but not by any amount that matters. Google will crawl it nonetheless.