Recently, Matt Cutts blogged about anti Google remarks made by Aaron Wall of SEO Book fame.

The linkbait all started because Aaron blogged about 301 redirecting a purchased domain to another brand (after spending 18 months and lots of cash). Apparently a Google engineer read the blog and killed all the link equity of the new domain. So, is this Matt's linkbait or Aaron's?

Really, is it OK to 301 redirect a domain to another domain? That is the real question. This is a common practice in today's link junkie world of PageRank driven backlink addiction. Matt indicated that 301's are certainly fine for brick and mortar businesses that purchase others, and real world business decisions that are not simply driven to artificially inflate backlinks.

In a world where other's do this sort of thing it is tough to compete in certain industries as a lily white virgin webmaster. I think that at least the following should be present to even consider a purchase of an existing domain with the intention to 301 redirect to an existing one.

♦ Both domains should share the same niche
♦ The purchased domain should not have expired
♦ Purchased domain still has content that attracted the links

There is talk out there about slowly changing the ownership information to mask domain registration changes so the link equity is maintained. Many do this, and fly under the radar. I think the moral of the story here is just that. Don't blog about it if you are doing something that is gray enough that it requires flying under the radar.