Another 301 Redirect question

[bopeep]

So I acquire a website in a sub-niche do a 301 redirect to main site.

I have a few questions
I will 301 redirect subniche.com to Mymainsite.io/sub-niche which is fine

Now,
1) I will 301 redirect subniche.com/red-widgets to Mymainsite.io/red-widgets
What do I do with the content I had up on subniche.com/red-widgets originally, considering it costs over hundreds of dollars to get it written? What is the best use of my old content? I don't need two red widget pages on my main site. Can I slighly repurpoe it and use it to further reinforce the topical relevancy of my Mymainsite.io/red-widgets by creating a Mymainsite.io/red-widgets/more-redwidget and linking up?

2) Consider that subniche.com/red-widgets has a lot of high quality backlinks. How long do I keep the redirect. Is there a certain time period after which I can let the subniche.com expire off, or should I keep the redirect as long as my main site is alive. I know it is only a few dollars a year, but I am just asking theoretically because I see a few companies letting very high value domains expire after the initial acquisition. On that note, If I bought such a domain which was already used as a redirect, will it have any link equity left for repurposing?

 

[Ryuzaki]

@bopeep,
1) If you repurpose the content for the main site, you should make sure you target different keywords, ones different enough that you don't risk them competing against each other. Alternatively, you could repurpose it and de-optimize it some and then pitch them around as guest posts. You could do something like dump them on another domain or web 2.0 but that's kind of un-doing the entire point of the 301 in the first place. Based on your description, I'd use them for guest posting or some kind of link building. Another option is to eat the loss.

2) Keep renewing the domain and keep the redirect forever. You only get credit for live links, and if a link is no longer crawlable through the redirect, you lose credit for it. Google may understand that the old page itself has moved, but they aren't going to give you link credit like that. Imagine how easy it would be to manipulate the algorithm otherwise.

Big companies do dumb stuff because of compartmentalization and making moves without consulting professionals in other departments. You don't want to mimic everything they do when it comes to things this technical.

And yes, you can move redirects around and keep the link equity. I wouldn't buy one that has been involved in anything that sets off my spidey senses, though.