I was recently asked the following question, and I thought it was worth sharing:

Someone had told me that they had bought various domains for their business which did nothing more than redirect to their website, so if a popular search term was ‘blue widgets’ then bluewidgets.com could be a good site to get hold of. I wondered if 1) you think this sort of thing is any good and 2) if worth a little investigation what are popular searches and then 3) that are cheap!

The answer to this depends on quite a few factors, but it’s a good one to talk about because it’s a common misconception. Let’s look at the different aspects.

There are only three possible benefits of having a domain redirect to your website.

Direct Domain Type-Ins

The first is if someone just randomly types in the domain, thinking it might take them to a relevant site. So, they type in bluewidgets.com, not even knowing what site occupies that domain, but wanting to take the chance on finding a great blue widget site. If this happens, of course, you might get a visitor.

But, that’s not likely to happen often, and it’ll certainly only happen with very short keyphrases, such as bluewidgets.com.

Redirecting Link Juice to a New Domain

The second benefit is that you gain some of any link authority that is currently pointing to that domain. So, any links that currently point to bluewidgets.com, now suddenly point to your domain, in a slightly roundabout way. You wont get as much benefit as a direct link, due to that roundabout route, but you will gain some link juice.

Redirecting Traffic From One Domain to Another

The third, and probably greatest benefit, is that you gain any traffic that is currently coming through the links we mentioned above. If there are a lot of links pointing to the domain you plan to buy, and they’re on decent sites, then there’s likely to be reasonable traffic coming through them. Plus, it’s likely to be pretty relevant traffic if they’re clicking a link related to one of your main keywords, and so it’s traffic worth trying to capture. So, that’s definitely a bigger benefit, most likely, than any link juice you might gain.

New Domains Versus Established Domains For Redirects

So, essentially, buying brand new domains for this purpose is a waste of time. The 2nd and 3rd benefits depend on existing links, and that’s not likely to exist for a brand new domain. Unless you somehow stumble on a 1 or 2 word keyphrase .com that’s relevant to your site, then the first benefit is also very unlikely.

But, if we’re talking established domains, then there could be some benefit. If you find a domain relating to your keywords that’s a few years old, has decent authority and a good collection of backlinks, then it could be very valuable to you for all of the reasons above. Unforunately, this isn’t a brand new market and sellers know this. Domains are valued accordingly and a good one like this is likely to cost you a fair bit.

Buying Established Exact Match Domains

You can research domains like this on common domain sales sites like sedo.com and GoDaddy auctions. Sometimes you might pick one up for a good price, but it’ll take a fair bit of searching and research to find a good one for a good price. But, for a good domain, it could be worth it.

The Google Exact Match Domain Update

A complicating factor to this is that, very recently, Google implemented an update aimed directly at domains that exactly match keywords, so many of the search ranking benefits that exact match domains used to enjoy have disappeared now. The update was made live in September 2012 and it caused thousands of low quality exact match domains to drop out of the rankings for the phrase that their domain matched.

Again, this only affected low quality sites, so many authority sites still do very well, but it’s something to watch out for.

Buying an Full Website that Matches Your Keywords

Now, if you manage to find a domain that actually hosts an established website, that introduces other factors. Firstly, it could link to your own site, passing on a certain amount of link juice. The value of this depends on the authority of the purchased site, of course.

Next, the site could be used to pass on buyers, and quite targetted ones at that. People searching for Blue Widgets find that site, and then they’re referred to you to actually buy the product. You could also set up mini stores on these newly purchased sites, and actually sell blue widgets direct from there. This could be quite highly converting since the whole site is about Blue Widgets, can explain the benefits of them, and offers no nasty distractions. Your customers will be highly focussed on that product

Beward Low Quality Niche Sites

But, it’s worth watching out when looking at purchasing this type of site. There are plenty of low authority, waste of money sites of this type – and even more now that the Google Exact Match Domain update has killed quite a few previously profitable sites.

So, the benefits would depend on how established a site is, what that site’s authority is and what amount traffic it enjoys. If all 3 were of a reasonable level, then the site would definitely be worth owning, so it would be worth approaching the owner to see if they would sell, and for how much.

The Simple Rule

In the end, it turns out that the answer is pretty common sense. It’s worth buying good quality, established domains or websites, if they’re related to your keywords. And it’s not worth buying crappy, new domains or site. Who would have thought…?

I’d love to hear what you think about this, or whether you have experience in using purchased domains or sites for this purpose. Let me know in the comments below.

colinmcgray

Colin Gray is a web designer, internet marketer, small business development advisor, elearning lecturer and current PhD student. Find out more about Colin Gray, or contact him on Google+