What to do with variations of our domain

Should we 301 redirect?

[roblaw]

We have a number of domains that are variations on our main domain. They have been around for about 3 years. Some have small sites built at that domain. None have links in, but some have PR (probably from a link that used to come in from our main domain/site).

The cross linking has been eliminated among all of the sites. The sites that had no PR and no links in have been parked with our registrar.

Questions:
Should I 301 redirect the domains that have PR?
Is there any value in doing so since the PR was probably the result of an old cross link from our main site?
Should I just park them all and/or let them go?

We were doing some redirects through our registrar on some of these names and the header response came back as a 302. I have removed the redirect and parked these domains. Should I be doing something different.

Obviously, I am trying to avoid any penalty to our main site/domain while extracting any possible value from what is there.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Bob.

[mcavic]

I would use a 301 on all the extra domains. The advantages are:

Passing PR, if there is any.
Directing type-in traffic to the correct URL.
No penalties.

[roblaw]

mcavic,

Thanks for the reply. Any idea if there is ever any going back after doing a 301 "permanent redirect"? Is it really permanent?

Let's say we decide to use one of the domains for something entirely different, can we simply remove the 301 and use the domain for another purpose without penalty?

Thanks again.

Bob

[mcavic]

Yes, you can always change it later. It may take some time for the engines to realize it, and I suspect they'll then treat it like a new site, except that it might already have some PR.