Thread Pick from SEN's Forum: SEO Benefit of Parked Domains

• Are there any SEO practices for parked domains, or advice as to whether there is any SEO benefit at all in having a mass of parked domains? The client historically has registered domains relevant to their business – the expense of renewals is now becoming apparent. They do nothing with them except redirect to their main url. Any views would be appreciated!

johnheard SEN's Head Researcher: There is very little "SEO" benefit to a parked domain that is 301 redirected to another site other than possibly picking up some link juice if the domain has any. If they are just extra domains that were registered to cover variations of the primary domain name, then that won't be the case. There used to be some value in type in traffic, but with most browsers converting over to search boxes in the URL field, that value is much less than many years ago. The question is, are you getting any traffic from those domains? Are you measuring it? For example redirecting with a tracking code of some sort? If you're not, then you might want to in order to help make your decision. Many companies use extra domains like that for tracking alternate advertising such as print, radio, and TV. SEO Wise they probably are not getting much if any boost from those domains, but that doesn't mean they can't be useful.

karenmcdonell: John, We were just having this debate in the office the other day and had come to the conclusion you present in the first paragraph. However, I had never thought of using tracking code to measure the redirected traffic. Appreciate the advice.

richardrothhaas: How does someone find the "parked" domains in the first place? If a domain has no related web pages on it, it would seem to have nothing but the domain name for indexing purposes. Would some minimal, relevant, strategic content on the index page of a domain that could be read by a visitor (5 seconds?) before being re-directed have benefit? Or does that c...