Pointing Previously Parked Domains to a live website, possible ranking effects

[darren azzopardi]

Hi all,

I've got a list of several domains that are currently parked and doing absolutely nothing. The time has come to renew these or to cull them. There are several that i would like to use and start point to a live website for example, i'm using a .co.uk and i want to use the .com version which has been previously not be in use.

what is or the possible outcome if i began to point these previously unused domains to a current live.....?

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], darren azzopardi!

currently parked and doing absolutely nothing

have they ever been used for a "live" site?
do they have any relevant inbound links?
do they have any value for branding or as type-in domains?

There are several that i would like to use and start point to a live website

could you define this in more technical terms?

whichever domain you decide to go with, you should make sure to redirect noncanonical requests to an appropriate url at the canonical hostname.

[aristotle]

for example, i'm using a .co.uk and i want to use the .com version which has been previously not be in use.

Wouldn't this be the opposite of what the title of this thread says?

Title of thread: point previously-parked domain to a live website

Quoted snippet: point live website (.co.uk) to a .com version previously not in use

[phranque]

Wouldn't this be the opposite of what the title of this thread says?

hence the question:

could you define this in more technical terms?

[lucy24]

Here's the part of the question that isn't clear. Do you want to
(a) point the DNS for one hostname to a different hostname, so the visitor's address bar says example.co.uk while they're seeing the content of example.com
OR
(b) redirect incoming requests for one site to a different site, so a request for example.co.uk ends up at example.com
?

[Wilburforce]

I am also not completely clear about what you are now doing or wish to do, but for reference, I have for many years owned the .co.uk, .eu and several other variants of mysite.com (the "active" version). All "unused" variants have forwarded (301) to .com from their date of registration, and if others are registered they will also do so. I don't see any compelling reason why they shouldn't, or why - in your case - they wouldn't have.

I'm not aware of any SEO benefits - or disdavantages, for that matter - that have followed or would follow from this (I suppose it might contribute marginally to Trust or Authority), but why wouldn't you do it? Uncertainty among users about whether a site or email address is (e.g.) .co.uk or .com is fairly commonplace, and having major variations end up in the same place has an obvious user benefit.

If your market is local (national), you can use GSC to specifiy.

One caveat is that - depending on their hosting packages - if your active domain is SSL and your other domains don't also have certificates, full address-bar entries that specify SSL (e.g. https:/www./mysite.biz) may fail, although mysite.biz (http://www.mysite.biz, www.mysite,biz...) should still forward without issue. Simplest is to host the forwarding domains with suppliers that include free SSL.

[tangor]

To me "parked domains" generally means "zero content available" and I have to ask what value is possible of sending zero to something... or the inverse?

In any event there's no linking value involved, again begging the question: "Why do it?"

Last, which way are the redirects going? From parked to live, or the other way around?

Color me confused.