Using an old site with Solid Historic Link Profile?

[Pjman]

I have a site that is 11 years old and it has a deep and historic link profile. It had a paywall in front of most of the content. I have since re purposed that content on to one of my other sites that had 30x the traffic.

I am about to create a new site with very similar, but very unique content. I was thinking of using that domain to post the new content on and redirect about 50% of the links on to new but similar topic pages.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it better to create a new site or use the old domain and redirect the links to about 50% of the new content and use the old link juice?

Thanks for any input.

[aristotle]

I have since re purposed that content on to one of my other sites that had 30x the traffic.

Did you re-direct the URLs at the former locations on the former site to the corresponding URLs at the new locations of this repurposed content?

Also, what about all the content that wasn't re-purposed to the new site. What did you do with it?

[Pjman]

That content was all hidden behind a pay wall, so google never indexed it. I took that exact content (behind the pay wall) and moved it to another site.

There are about 200 articles that weren't changed at all on that site and links are still pointing to them. I would plan to keep those articles and fit them into the redesigned template of the site, if I planned to rejuvenate that site.

[tangor]

If the content is the same, or an upgraded version of same, probably no problems FROM THE LINKER'S side.

If never indexed (allowed to be indexed) what link juice is there?

You should be okay no matter what you do.

[Pjman]

@tangor

Which would get the needle moving faster, using an old site's link juice or starting brand new? In the old days, I'd always go with the former, but these days; I have no idea.

[tangor]

There aren't any short cuts (no matter what others might say).

If these are intended to be redirected, do that. If they are new enough to "new content" on a new site, treat them as new content.

Chasing old "juice" for new content is iffy at best.

I never worry about it. I redirect when it makes sense, else 410 and let the new stuff be new stuff. YMMV

[Pjman]

@tangor

You are right 100% . Shortcuts never work long term.

[aristotle]

It's still not clear to me how much you want to change the site.

If you want to gradually add new quality content that "fits in" with the existing content, that should be okay. You could look at it as a way to improve the site.

But if you want to make big changes, that could involve a lot of work that might not pay off.

[Pjman]

@aristotle

The content would be totally original from the previous content, but the same topics. They are all cut and dry school topics. For example: Topic Page: "What is photosynthesis? " Same topic, just different and unique answer.

[tangor]

Heh heh! Given example, how many different and unique answers are there for photosynthesis? As far as I know there's only one answer (convoluted, but only one) and that is NOT new content. It's more of the same that can be found on a zillion websites.

Might try asking different questions.

Rehash is old hash and I like my hash with meat and potatoes, a bit of pepper, extra salt and high heat until well-done with two eggs and a half dozen drop biscuits on the side. Won't say no to some gravy, orange juice, apricot preserves and coffee afterwards.

[aristotle]

What is photosynthesis

For articles about subjects like photosynthesis, you'll usually be competeing against some very high-authority sites. No matter how good your article is, it won't have a chance against high-authority sites even if their competing articles are much worse than yours.

[Pjman]

Sorry, bad example.

The site offers printable PDFs that are education related like math problems. There are tons of different ways to present math problems and offer direction sets.

[tangor]

This is true. What makes a difference in many cases is the PRESENTATION as well as the CONTENT.

If you can make MATH fun you already have a winner.

PDF sites, on the other hand, are scraper bait and you will be out of business PDQ. If that acronym is not obvious it means "pretty darn quick".

There's a reason why PDF sites that actually make money are paywalled, login, and member only....

The old adage "once on the web it is forever" has a corollary in that "fi you give access somebody will rip you off".

No intent to be negative, just managing expectations! Find the sweet spot and go from there.

[Pjman]

@tangor

"PDF sites, on the other hand, are scraper bait "

I totally agree, this why I "noindex and nofollow" and robots.txt block all PDFs from being indexed. I write good descriptions that lead to the PDFs and found this to work very well.

[Pjman]

Also I embedded links back to the source (HTML Pages) within the PDFs. This work great for backlinks too.

[tangor]

The back links are to the old site. Cake and eat it, too is very difficult and g (and others) might have a problem with that.

Create new content to keep old domain alive if that is the intent. Else concentrate on the site that is getting the heavy traffic and go from there.