do these links count toward link popularity

[publisher108]

If I buy an expired domain name that is getting traffic and has

many backlinks, and I redirect the domain to my domain,

will the backlinks that are redirected to my site count toward link

popularity.

Jeremy

[leadegroot]

On Google? Probably not, but its impossible to be positive.
The general rule is that if Google knows it has expired then they have killed the PR passing ability of the backlinks.
But do they know?
Hard to say :(

[IndiciumWD]

Google bought a domain reg company a while back (I forget the name of it just now) but the upshot is that you can be sure they they use Whois info in determining whether to discontinue old linking info or not.

My suggestion would be that if you have bought an expired domain, put a USEFUL new site on it, and link this to your existing site.

Presumably, the domain you have bought is relevant to your market, so perhaps some kind of microsite about a sub-set of your products and services.

Check Google's cache to see if old pages from the site are still in the index, and if so, re-use the exact URLs.

Essentially, if you can get this done quickly enough, the effect will be like buying the original website rather than just the domain (albeit with new content). You can then link to your main site and use it as an additional marketing channel.