I have a website that I have built on a free host (I did this to use their WYSIWYG program). I then purchased a domain name from another host and 301 redirected it to the site that I built on the free host. I have now begun to SEO the site by building links to the domain name (which redirect to the hosted site). Will this work? Will it truly optimize the actual site or will it just optimize the domain that is using the redirect. Just to make it clearer to anyone that might have some advice, the domain that uses the redirect is poolservicephoenix(dot)com and it redirects to http://aapmp.homestead.com/ I appreciate any advice that anyone could give me. thallewell
Redirecting a new domain to a free site, or any other site, won't do anything at all. You need backlinks pointing directly to the domain you wish you use. If you want to give your company a professional appearance, you should buy a shared hosting plan and use your new domain name. You can put a notice on homestead that you have a new site and give the url. You can get shared hosting for $5 or less a month.
Well thats not totally true provided he builds just a few links to the free hosting, and the rest to a domain that is 301'd he could pull it off. I've seen websites rank just by sheer weight of domains with existing links and quality anchor text being redirected.
Although I'd be more likely to decline or pull a link on a site of my own if it redirected to another site. Link Building should appear to be organic, and thats not.
That used to be the case, but google has gotten wise to 301 redirects. It can also get you banned with MSN. How many quality sites are going to link to a domain that redirects to a homestead account? His domain is brand new. There is absolutely no benefit to redirecting a new domain to another account. Although I wouldn't use free hosting, if you don't have $30 a year to spend on hosting, it would be better than using a homestead account.
I have just been experimenting with the whole free hosting thing. I have actually had a lot of success with SEO'ing other homestead sites but with each of those I always hosted the site at the actual domain name in the past, this is the first time that I have tried to redirect to a free hosting site. I have an account with bluehost which allows me to host as many domains as I want, the only problem is that I am using coffee cup visual editor to build the site and I have yet to learn how to actually upload the site that I have built to my bluehost account. Homestead makes the whole publishing thing so easy, now that I am trying to use a more mainstream host I need to learn how to do it all over again. Thanks for the advice guys.