I have a very old ecommerce site (2001) which ranks #1 in google for my main product. The site is our main product name with "inc" at the end and is a dot com. I acquired the actual product name (which is generic not a TM name or anything) and I have been redirecting it since about late 2001. It is not a framed redirect it is simply redirecting to our sites domain. I have been #1 for our main product since 2001 and was wondering if it would negatively impact my SEO if were to stop it from redirecting? The reason I am doing this is so I can make a sister site with different information and a completely different product line in the same niche. Thanks for any help. John
Possibly. You need to find out who is linking to the new domain and what the authority is. In any case there will be SOME loss, because redirected domains act as a strong link in themselves. Possibly the best thing you can do is redirect the new domain to your new website, but make sure that there are plenty of links back to your old website. In the long term it will work out better because your new website can develop its own authority etc.
Thanks for the info. There are only a couple of sites which link to the new domain and none carry much weight. Thanks again John
For domain redirects google suggests that you contact the owners of the sites that link to your original domain, and inform them of the redirect (which we all know is almost impossible if you have thousands of IBLs). They recommend that you don't rely solely on a 301. Unless you could manage to have all your backlinks changed it would probably hurt your SEO to remove it.
In my case it is a domain name simply redirecting to my site. The domain name I am redirecting has 1-2 back links neither of which are very good. The domain name is very good so I don't want to waste it. It gets maybe 20 direct type-ins a day. So in essence I am not benefiting from the strength of the domain name I am redirecting. I can probably get it into the top 5 in google very quickly if not immediately so that would give me 2 sites at the top of google. I will also keep a link to my main site from the new site which will hopefully make up for me not redirecting it anymore. lol a little confusing. Thanks John