Buying a disused website and using their content - penalty risk?
-
Hi all, I'm in the process of setting up a new website.
I have found various old websites covering a similar topic and I'm interested in purchasing two of these websites for their content as it is very good, despite those sites struggling to make ends meet.
One of these websites is still live, the other one hasn't been live for 2 years.
Let's say I bought these websites for their content, then used that content on my new domain and made sure the two websites where this content came from were offline, would I run a risk of getting penalised? Does Google hold onto content from a website even if it is now offline?
-
Brilliant, thanks Gaston
-
Hello Bee,
In my opinion, the non-risky way to use the other site content (owning that site) is removing that site from Google's index.
So, you should first (after buying those sites) apply noindex robots meta tag and wait intill there is no result whem performing a site:website.com search.Even though, be sure that other sites aren't using that content when you de index the first (and old) site. I've read some grey/black hat techniques that scrape web.archive.org looking for taken down sites' content.
Hope it helps.
GR. -
Thanks for the reply Roman, I probably wasn't clear. I'll try to clarify:
Say there is a websiteA.com which was established for years but then was taken down and hasn't been live for a couple of years. If I bought website A then rolled lots of its content into a new website, let's called it websiteB.com would I be risking any penalties on the new domain?
Thanks.
-
The answer is very simple, if you want to use the content of other website, and you are the owner just need to use Rel="canonical"
The process for dealing with duplicate content is to use the rel=canonical attribute. This tells search engines that a given page should be treated as though it were a copy of a specified URL, and all of the links, content metrics, and "ranking power" that search engines apply to this page should actually be credited to the specified URL.
The rel=canonical attribute should be added to the HTML head of each duplicate version of a page, with the "URL OF ORIGINAL PAGE" portion above replaced by a link to the original (canonical) page. (Make sure you keep the quotation marks.) The attribute passes roughly the same amount of link equity (ranking power) as a 301 redirect, and, because it's implemented at the page (instead of server) level, often takes less development time to implement.
Regards
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can buying a sponsored post (for non SEO purposes) on a website where you already have a guest post have a negative impact?
Hi, I thinking about buying a sponsored post about our product on a website we have previously contributed a guest post. Can a new sponsored post make Google think our original guest post was paid for? Thanks, Ori
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dizi3770 -
Do I use H1 tag for logo or page content?
Should the h1 tag be used for the main page content or the logo? I understand the original method was too H1 the logo with the main search term, does this still hold true or should it be content focused?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Linking to External Websites?
Is it good to link external websites from every page. Since, the on-page grader shows there should be one link pointing to an external source. I have a website that can point to an external website from every page using the brand name of the specific site like deal sites do have. Is it worth having external link on every page, of-course with a no-follow tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Thin Content to Quality Content
How should i modify content from thin to high quality content. Somehow i realized that my pages where targetted keywords didn't had the keyword density lost a massive ranking after the last update whereas all pages which had the keyword density are ranking good. But my concern is all pages which are ranking good had all the keyword in a single statement like. Get ABC pens, ABC pencils, ABC colors, etc. at the end of a 300 word content describing ABC. Whereas the pages which dropped the rankings had a single keyword repeated just twice in a 500 word article. Can this be the reason for a massive drop. Should i add the single statement like the one which is there on pages ranking good? Is it good to add just a single line once the page is indexed or do i need to get a fresh content once again along with a sentence of keyword i mentioned above?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure1 -
Redesigned Website
Hi, I have redesigned my website in html whereas it was in .asp earlier. I have resubmitted my google sitemap but it still showing me old site pages in search except home page. My question is how i can immediately change my web presence. How i can get the benefit of my .asp page ranks? In addition my website still alive with .asp. What should be the strategy, should i remove this websites or have to redirect all pages to new. If i make 301 redirection then will it cause any issue in SEO, ranking etc ? Thx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 1akal0 -
How use Rel="canonical" for our Website
How is the best way to use Rel="canonical" for our website www.ofertasdeemail.com.br, for we can say goodbye for duplicated pages? I appreciate for every help. I also hope to contribute to the SEOmoz community. Sincerely,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZZNINTERNETMEDIAGROUP
Amador Goncalves0 -
Differentiating Content
I have a piece of content (that is similar) that legitimately shows up on two different sites. I would like both to link, but it seems as if they are "flip flopping" in ranking. Sometimes one shows up, sometimes another. What's the best way to differentiate a piece of content like this? Does it mean rewriting one entirely? http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/solutions/ada-handrail/ http://simplifiedsafety.com/solutions/ada-handrail/ I want to the Simplified Building one to be found first if I had a preference.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CPollock0