Black HatDanger Score: 9.0 / 10Apr 8, 2026
The Expired Domain 301 Trick
A supplement brand acquired a defunct health blog with 15 years of backlinks and 301'd it into their money pages. Then Google noticed.
The plays
- 01
Topically adjacent acquisition
The acquired domain was 'about' health — close enough to look natural.
- 02
301 to commercial pages
Old editorial URLs forwarded to product pages, not equivalents.
- 03
Slow drip
Migrated 30 URLs/month to avoid spike detection.
Plays referenced
Run it yourself
- ✓Don't. Manual actions and link-spam updates catch this now.
- ✓If you must inherit a domain, run it as a real publication for 12+ months first.
Recognize it on you
- →WHOIS shows new ownership within the last 18 months.
- →Wayback Machine shows a sudden topic shift.
- →Inbound anchor text doesn't match the current content at all.