What to do with an old website you no longer need?

[RedFoxLotto]

I built a personal website (not gambling-related) for a friend years ago. The website is no longer needed, has little traffic but it has some domain authority which should not go to waste. So what do you think is the best option here:

A - re-purpose the site with a different topic and some fresh content
B - redirect the website to my money website to pass link juice
C - keep the website as is and add some pages from which I link out to my money websites.

[connd]

In my opinion B if its related in anyway to your money site, otherwise C with homepage links to your sites.

A can work, for example inkedin.com did this recently, but that would only work if you've a generic website name in my opinion.

[Mattbar]

If the site is clean and low risk then go for B I think and redirect. Otherwise go with C and sell links or link to your money sites, this is of course more effort though.

[universal4]

Depends more on the niche I think

Rick
Universal4

[RedFoxLotto]

Depends more on the niche I think

Rick
Universal4

Well the website in question is not gambling-related at all (it is about a friends career and profile as an actor), and my sites are about gambling, specifically lottery.

[baldidiot]

Well the website in question is not gambling-related at all (it is about a friends career and profile as an actor), and my sites are about gambling, specifically lottery.

If it's totally unrelated I probably wouldn't be redirecting in to your sites. Tbh even links might be a stretch unless you can figure a legitimate connection between them (ie: linking from a knitting site to a casino one would be a bit weird).

[universal4]

Agree with baldidiot and why I said it depended on what the original theme was...

You could maybe throw a few general articles up about acting, modeling, the theater etc and then try selling it, (especially if it has a little bit of juice on such keywords) but if it is your friends name or something related to him directly in the url might not want to do that.

Rick
Universal4

[chaumi]

If your friend is not worried about what goes on it, maybe you could be thinking about creating a page (or page) around subjects that would allow you to legitimately incorporate gambling related material......

example xxxxxxx's favorite actors (and then you have Sean Connery, Paul Newman, whoever....all having appeared in gambling-related movies which lets you mention that either as an intro or summary
xxxxx's favourite gambling movies
etc, etc

It's a link (or links) on a site that you control, you know what's on it, you know its history, and probably costs <$20 to maintain per year.

[MJM]

You forgot Option D which is take the site offline and move on.

[baldidiot]

Option E is sell it

[PaulEchere]

Chaumi's point is quite good, you could potentially steer it towards being more relevant to the gambling niche - then using it for linking to your own website will likely make much more sense.

[Strider1973]

I would not redirect an unrelated domain. I don't think just buying expired domains and redirecting them for link juice is a great strategy.

It also depends on the domain name. If the domain is firstname-lastname.com then I'd just let it expire.

If it's generic like career-advice.com and you think it might have some value, then just try to sell it.
If you think you cannot sell it or it's worth <100$ then just let it expire and move on, like others already mentioned.

[chaumi]

There's a fundamental question at play here that you have to ask yourself....

Do I subscribe to the view that a link on an unrelated domain is either going to be worthless or hurt me in some way?......

Or is it really the content on the page where my link is that's the most important factor and the domain itself (and its general intent) doesn't matter?


All I will say here is that there is plenty of evidence that it appears it's the second of those that's more important. On the basis of any known evidence, it's highly unlikely either one is going to hurt (but no absolute guarantee that would always be the case)...and...if there is juice in the site...then a link on a page with relevant content to your target URL has reasonable chances of passing some value. There's even some evidence that a link in relevant text in the middle of an unrelated page might pass value, though I doubt any of us would actually recommend that approach and you'd have to be saying that clearly takes you headlong into the area of spam linking.

[baldidiot]

There's a fundamental question at play here that you have to ask yourself....

Do I subscribe to the view that a link on an unrelated domain is either going to be worthless or hurt me in some way?......

Or is it really the content on the page where my link is that's the most important factor and the domain itself (and its general intent) doesn't matter?

I think you're right, but only if the relevant content fits the original site. If the site is for an old burger joint in Aberdeen then sticking a page about blackjack on it is going to be weird. Ie: the blackjack page would fit the link, but the content itself wouldn't fit the site.

What I would probably do with the site depends on how much value it has. If it's got a couple of links and never really got much traffic and was massively unrelated I probably wouldn't bother. Or maybe link it to an intermediary site that links to yours (eg: burger joint in aberdeen links to aberdeen city guide which has a section on casinos in aberdeen that links to your site).

If the site has a good number of legitimate organic links, especially stronger ones you can't buy (eg: if it happens to have links from the NYT or BBC or whatever) then you could absorb the site into something more relevant first before linking out. For example, a general movie blog that has a section on gambling in films or something like that. Only worth it if the links justify it though.

[sevenstardigital]

Wouldn't bother with B, the link juice may not be as beneficial as you'd hope if the site isn't relevant to the niche you're hoping to rank within, which I assume is gambling

[BCGame Affiliates]

I would sell it personally.

[gamslo]

I think it depends　on the quality of the site that is no longer needed.
If it is highly relevant to the site that can be monetized and the quality is high, we will set up a link.
If it is irrelevant and of poor quality, sell the domain.