301 redirect help

Does Google penalize your site if you purchase a new URL to include better keywords than your existing site. Then use the new URL to redirect to the existing URL?

Please advise. Thank you!

see my post of a few minutes ago in our Google forum....says it all, it does!



Jim

If you purchase a new - keyword rich - domain and redirect it to your existing site, you won't get penalised, but you won't gain anything either.

The only possible way you would gain is if the new domain name is a "type-in domain name" (eg: www.cheapcars.com).

The likelihood of your having found an unregistered domain with "type-in" potential is pretty slim... So my guess is you'll gain nothing at all by doing this.

Thank you Jim (great article), thank you Clicky.

My site URL includes abbreviations of the city, but does not include the entire city name and the juicy keywords. The new URL is not a previously owned site, so it would not transfer over any backlinks. I assumed if I bought the new site that it would rank higher in the serps. Would this still be true with a re-direct or would I have to transfer over the entire site? The article Jim referred to is a bit confusing to me.

I'm a little confused too - lol - because you said: Then use the new URL to redirect to the existing URL?

If you're redirecting to your existing site from the new domain:
...the only possible gain would be from backlinks to the redirecting domain (and you say there aren't any)... Other than that you'll gain nothing from this exercise.

If you're redirecting from your existing site to the new domain:
...you will - eventually - gain from the "KID", but you may lose out during the "re-mapping" process and you could probably gain as much from a handful of links with the correct anchors.

Lol - sorry for the confusion. Maybe I should re-phrase my question..

Due to not having a physical address (only PO box), my competitors are popping up all over Local Business maps and my site isn't. I would like to rank higher organically and after performing thorough keyword research, I would like to buy a new URL that includes the city name and keywords. My question is should I purchase the new keyword-rich URL and do a 301 redirect to the existing site?

2nd question - if I do purchase the new URL, will this rank higher on the SERPs if people are searching for the city name and keywords included in the new URL? or would I have to move the entire existing site over to the new URL to rank?

I assume you're speaking of googles local business results.
For example, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=iLQ&q=pittsburgh+computer+repair&aq=f&aqi=g-m1&oq=

You can submit your business manually:
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=21029&topic=21032


You still need to define a physical position though.

Ordinarily, you would want to prominently display the complete address and phone on relevant pages of the site. A local phone number can be helpful, too. even if you have a toll free number, a number with a local area code can help.

As you've seen, location based results don't like po boxes. It's assumed that your desk/office isn't inside a little 9x9 locker (I'm thinking MIB2).


The use of key phrases with local terms may help serp for those long tails, but will not put you on the map (literally).