Bought a competitor's domain

[onlinesource]

A competitor of mine has walked away from the industry. His old domain went up for sale and I got it because there are still a number of backlinks out there that could drive traffic to me.

What is the best option, to create a landing page on his old domain or 301 redirect his url (ie: hissite.com) or to a landing page on my website like mystore.com/hissite.

Are their benefits to either?

What should the landing page SAY or DO? I mean, I don't own his business, just his domain. Should I talk about the acquisition?

[fathom]

First, be mindful if an unnatural link profile exists before you do anything.

If your domain has a blog 301 redirect/point it there.

If you desire sales traffic to your store pages ... Banner Ad the blog page but since these are merely navigational ads (your ads can also have exact match keyword phrases as dofollow links) which will substantially improve you ordered ranks for the targeted phrases you used.

[onlinesource]

Thank you so much fathom for the response.

I think I'll stick with pointing to my blog with a banner ad.

I was just under the impression after talking to others that the best solution would be to bring people to a site that mimic his site as much as possible. In other words, once Google sees what the OLD site used to look like and my NEW site looks like, and they see a difference (which Google would), then the old link is looked upon as a new link and old backlinks to that old link loose even more value. I hope I'm making any sense? :)

I still feel like it will drive traffic regardless and a blog is the best way to convert potential sales.

[fathom]

Thank you so much fathom for the response.

I think I'll stick with pointing to my blog with a banner ad.

If I understand what you want to do is 1) use the competing domain to better rank your current domain 2) acquire the targeted sales traffic to be additional sales for you and 3) convert as much of the new information seekers to buyers.

If so ... do as I suggested.

I was just under the impression after talking to others that the best solution would be to bring people to a site that mimic his site as much as possible. In other words, once Google sees what the OLD site used to look like and my NEW site looks like, and they see a difference (which Google would), then the old link is looked upon as a new link and old backlinks to that old link loose even more value. I hope I'm making any sense? happy!

Sound dumb? 10 years from now, 5 years, 2 years, 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, how long before the public stops being nostalgic about a dead company?. I bet they forgot already.

Seriously if they were well known like Overture or Netscape would someone or anyone care if they became Yahoo or AOL?

The answer would be NO!... now let's get realistic here how much less will the much smaller market care about your ex-competitor?

If that was Google... your advisers might be right.